While I’m worrying about [higher education as philanthropy](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2010/film-school-business-education), Samuel Arbesman dares to question the [value of a Hogwarts education](http://arbesman.net/blog/2010/11/07/no-wizard-left-behind/):
> As near as I can tell, if you grow up in the magical world (as opposed to be Muggle-born, for example), you do not go to school at all until the age of eleven. In fact, it’s entirely unclear to me how the children of the wizarding world learn to read and write. There is a reason Hermione seems much more intelligent than Ron Weasley. It’s because Ron is very likely completely uneducated.
The books make mention of the Weasley kids going to another school before Hogwarts — and anyway, they’d be good candidates for home-schooling. But the larger issue is that such an insular and specialized education starting at such a young age is almost certainly a bad idea.
> Perhaps some go off to college and graduate school. But that seems unlikely due to the dim view they take of the Muggle world. More likely, they go off to work in such places as a governmental agency, entirely unaware of political theory. Or they write for a daily newspaper, without knowing anything about journalism.
But then again, we live in a Muggle world full of under-educated politicians and journalists. And we don’t get wands.
(via [Kottke](http://kottke.org/10/11/the-value-of-a-hogwarts-education).)