More Money Than Brains: Why School Sucks, College is Crap, & Idiot Think They're Right

By Laura Penny

One of Canada's funniest and most incisive social critics reveals why in North America, where governments spend so much on schools and colleges, training is valued far more than education and loud-mouth ignoramuses are widely and publicly celebrated.

Public education in the United States is in such pitiful shape, the president wants to replace it. Test results from Canadian public schools indicate that Canadian students are at least better at taking tests than their American cousins. On both sides of the border, education is rapidly giving way to job training, and learning how to think for yourself and for the sake of dipping into the vast ocean of human knowledge is going distinctly out of fashion.

It gets worse, says Laura Penny, university lecturer and scathingly funny writer. Paradoxically, in the two nations that have among the best universities, libraries, and research institutions in the world, intellectuals are largely distrusted and yelping ignoramuses now clog the arenas of public discourse.

A brilliant defence of the humanities and social sciences, More Money Than Brains takes a deadly and extremely funny aim at those who would dumb us down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781551993461

Reviews for More Money Than Brains

[kaelirenee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anti-intellectualism examined. Not a bad book, but it's written for the audience it's mocking.

[dabble58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have three university-aged children and an ex-husband who teaches at a university. My youngest son is starting at a liberal arts college this fall, and when I saw the subject of this book, I had to pick it up. I took a "practical" first degree myself, and have all my life wished I was more educated, rather than trained.
Penny's discussion of the dumbing down of academia and the rejection of intelligence reads so true as I hear it from my kids - the total focus on jobs as vs. learning how to think, the disrespect for knowledge. Penny rants merrily onwards, leaving me snorting out loud as I read it in public, encouraging me to drop everything else and read more. Her style is breezy, cheeky, snarky and often filled with four-letter words. It makes me desperate to audit one of her classes. I think she'd be a hoot. She makes her case well, supports it with information, but never lets that make the reading dull or tedious. I like the way she takes both the Americans and we Canadians to task - suffering as we are under a government that thinks not answering questions is the way to run an election (and finding out to my horror that they are probably right), I mourn the loss of intelligent debate.
This book is a must read for anyone with kids going to college, teachers, policy wonks, well, just everybody. Settle in somewhere where your laughter won't bother the inhabitants, and get ready for a wild, fun, and informative ride.