Rational Ignorance in Education

 This past Friday, I was able to talk on the phone with a good friend of mine who is in his first year of medical school. As he was telling me about how it was going, he explained that this first chunk of classes he is taking is all introductory and is all pass/fail. As such, when he's been studying, he's had to take mind of how to spend his time so that he can do well enough to pass the classes without spending way too much time on school and getting a better grade than he needs. Essentially, he is having to calculate his marginal benefit and marginal cost curves for studying, and these curves look different than they typically would for him in a school setting because all he needs to do is pass these classes. 

Rational ignorance in the case of school, especially med school, where students are seeking to learn to equip themselves for a profession in which lives are at stake, seems to be an important area to examine. If future doctors are in positions, at least early in their schooling, where they don't need to learn the material really well, but instead just need to learn it well enough to pass. For this to be the case, it seems important that a passing grade would ensure students know the material which is important to know really well. I am confident my friend will be a great doctor one day, but if there are other students who are just skimming by (to the extent that you can skim by in a med school setting), it seems important that these students would still be equipped well enough by their schooling to be good doctors. I would imagine most people would prefer their doctors to be people who really learned the important information well, rather than just well enough to pass. As such, it seems important to incentivize learning in a way where the rational ignorance of these students is as low as possible (while also not making it so difficult that the supply for doctors cannot be met). On the other hand, as this article explains, time spent studying can take away time spent learning to be with patients later in med school, meaning students may have to allow for more rational ignorance in one part of their studies to be better suited for another part of their future career. It's a complicated issue, but one worth thinking through well.