Arab World Built Colleges, but Not Jobs

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Protests erupting across the Middle East are fueled by frustrations ranging from the lack of political freedom to police brutality. But in countries wracked by protest and those that have remained peaceful, a common thread runs: Governments have expanded universities and educated a swelling cohort of youth, without laying the groundwork to employ them.

"Surprisingly," International Monetary Fund economists Yasser Abdih and Anjali Garg wrote recently, "unemployment in the [Middle East and North Africa] region tends to increase with schooling." In the U.S., the opposite is true.

The law of diminishing returns applies to everything: even education.