Egalitarian Society without Closed Borders?

[Jason]

I wan't to try the Egalitarian Society campaign but I am wondering about 90%+ literacy with multiculturalism, high SoL, and migration. In all of my previous campaigns, lots of people to work and fuel the machine are a good thing. So far though, I have only gotten to about 85% literacy (with Public schools, Compulsory Primary Education, and 5 Education investment).
So, my guess is that the immigration is dragging down the literacy. Any ideas or tips? Maybe there is something I am missing.
I am still not sure if universities actually help with literacy. Obviously, innovation rate and qualifications. It seems to make sense that to get qualifications for more advanced jobs, the pop needs to become literate, but it is unclear. I always build enough universities to keep my innovation at the cap and a healthy technology spread, but does more universities provide any other benefits (particularly with regards to literacy)?

[Zaczac121]

Do Oranje Free State. Its really simple to do a one-state run when you have a large amount of gold mines. In the end, if you max out public school institution it should outpace immigration. Also use "Promote Social Mobility"

[Crim]

Switch to Private Schools

Public Schools are for poor countries; Private Schools are for countries with high SOL

[Jason]

Originally posted by jlane0710:

I am still not sure if universities actually help with literacy. Obviously, innovation rate and qualifications. It seems to make sense that to get qualifications for more advanced jobs, the pop needs to become literate, but it is unclear. I always build enough universities to keep my innovation at the cap and a healthy technology spread, but does more universities provide any other benefits (particularly with regards to literacy)?

Succeeded as France with Multi-Culturalism and Migration Controls (which is basically, open borders...)
Building more Universities definitely makes a difference even with the innovation maxed out and education investment at 5. I used Public Schools. I couldn't have switched to Private schools at that point because support was so low. My SoL was just over 20 so I am not sure it would have made much difference anyway.
When the migrations started I saw my literacy dropping (I was at about 87%), then I started building more universities in the high labor pool states and the literacy started to go back up. If I had to make an estimate, it seemed like about 1 university per 100K in the labor pool.

[Crim]

Originally posted by jlane0710:

Originally posted by jlane0710:

I am still not sure if universities actually help with literacy. Obviously, innovation rate and qualifications. It seems to make sense that to get qualifications for more advanced jobs, the pop needs to become literate, but it is unclear. I always build enough universities to keep my innovation at the cap and a healthy technology spread, but does more universities provide any other benefits (particularly with regards to literacy)?

Succeeded as France with Multi-Culturalism and Migration Controls (which is basically, open borders...)
Building more Universities definitely makes a difference even with the innovation maxed out and education investment at 5. I used Public Schools. I couldn't have switched to Private schools at that point because support was so low. My SoL was just over 20 so I am not sure it would have made much difference anyway.
When the migrations started I saw my literacy dropping (I was at about 87%), then I started building more universities in the high labor pool states and the literacy started to go back up. If I had to make an estimate, it seemed like about 1 university per 100K in the labor pool.

Building more Universities WILL increase your Literacy... but not because your Literacy is increasing...

What?

Let me explain...
Universities have literally ZERO impact on your general population's literacy. There is NOT a "1 Uni per 100k" it does nothing. ZERO... PERIOD


HOWEVER... Universities HIRE a lot of Clergy and Academics who do receive a +50% Education/Literacy bonus; and depending on market forces it is possible for them to get the Qualifications for a higher paying job faster, which will create room in the University to hire new Academics.

[Jason]

I thought of it like this....
With education at 5, you get 50% education access, so you are still going to have pops reach working age that can't read. Plus, migrants show up and many of them can't read. That is where universities come in. Because if they can't read, they don't qualify for jobs above the basic level. So, I thought, maybe the first level of "qualification" is learning to read, or the basic literacy.
The Wiki talks about Literacy target requirements for a pop to meet qualifications, so if a university is going to increase qualifications, it HAS to increase literacy in the process.
I hadn't noticed the +50% education access buff for academics and clergy, but that helps explain the increase in literacy also. Their qualifications will increase more quickly and then they become engineers, etc., and allow others to take the job and increase their qualifications quickly.

As far a the 1 university per 100K ratio, I was just pointing out that it seemed like if I was below that ratio, the literacy would stall or decrease, then when I built more universities to exceed that ratio, it started going up again.
I think Paradox could probably explain this better, either in the game directly, via tool-tips, or in the Wiki. It is confusing because universities don't increase education access, but they do increase qualifications, and literacy IS one of the parts of the qualifications equation.

[Crim]

Originally posted by jlane0710:

I thought of it like this....
With education at 5, you get 50% education access, so you are still going to have pops reach working age that can't read. Plus, migrants show up and many of them can't read. That is where universities come in. Because if they can't read, they don't qualify for jobs above the basic level. So, I thought, maybe the first level of "qualification" is learning to read, or the basic literacy.
The Wiki talks about Literacy target requirements for a pop to meet qualifications, so if a university is going to increase qualifications, it HAS to increase literacy in the process.
I hadn't noticed the +50% education access buff for academics and clergy, but that helps explain the increase in literacy also. Their qualifications will increase more quickly and then they become engineers, etc., and allow others to take the job and increase their qualifications quickly.

As far a the 1 university per 100K ratio, I was just pointing out that it seemed like if I was below that ratio, the literacy would stall or decrease, then when I built more universities to exceed that ratio, it started going up again.
I think Paradox could probably explain this better, either in the game directly, via tool-tips, or in the Wiki. It is confusing because universities don't increase education access, but they do increase qualifications, and literacy IS one of the parts of the qualifications equation.

Not how it works
Literacy has a minimal threshold for jobs, that you either have or you don't... Qualifications does nothing to change that

Increasing Qualification affects how many people per month can be promoted assuming they already meet Education/Literacy requirements


If you have +1mil% Qualifications and literally no one meets the Literacy Threshold, the Qualification % does nothing

[Jason]

Ok. It seems like it doesn't make illiterate pops able to read but increases literacy by making clergy and adademics MORE literate, thus increasing the average literacy...??
Anyway, Once the education investment is at 5, building universities is the only other thing to directly raise literacy?

[Joakim]

Hello!
A populations literacy rating is moved towards its Education Access as people die or are born. It also seems that swiching profession moves literacy (but I can't confirm that this is the case). This can explain why building Universities can seem to help increase literacy rates as stated above.
I also suspect that assimilating moves literacy, (again, can't confirm).

To clarify how Literacy works (as far as I can tell qualifications has nothing to do with it, so feel free to skip if that was the main question, I just spent too much time figuring it out myself ):

Education Access of 100% moves Literacy towards 100%. The wider the gap is, the faster literacy % rises.
It is very slow to go from 90 -> 95% Literacy, even with 100% Education Access.

Education Access is derived from:
1. 2% per wealth (0,5% each from Base Value, Rationalism, Academia, Empiricism)
+ either:
2.a) 50% from maxed Public/Religious Schools. OR
2.b) 2.5% per wealth from maxed Private Schools.
+
3. 25% from potential Promote Social Mobility.

To achieve 90%+ literacy, Education Access needs to be above 90%, preferably 100%.
Whichever school system chosen, a population need to be above 20 wealth to have a EA of above 90%, if Promote Social Mobility isn't used.
To reach 100% EA, Wealth needs to be:

25.0 Wealth for Religious and Public School System.
22.3 Wealth for Private School System.

This is clearly "middle strata" levels of wealth for almost all game.

If Promote Social Mobility is used it's:

12.5 Wealth for Religious and Public School System. OR
16.7 Wealth for Private School System.

This level of wealth can be achieved by almost all employed populations by mid or late game.

Be mindful of that it is the individual population's wealth, not the wealth/standard of living of it's strata or the country.

Apologies for another wall of text. Happy Achivement hunting out there!
(edited minor typos.)

[Jason]

Originally posted by Joakim:

Apologies for another wall of text. Happy Achivement hunting out there!

No apologies needed at all. This was very helpful. I think I actually understand it now.
I also learned and remembered a few things.
SoL = Wealth +/- Modifiers
Promote Social Mobility is a big boost but I also realize, in the late game, without a lot of Authority, it would be harder to use effectively in large, spread out countries. So, more concentrated (tall) countries will use the decree much more effectively.

Again, thanks for this post and explanation.

[Joakim]

Originally posted by jlane0710:

Promote Social Mobility is a big boost but I also realize, in the late game, without a lot of Authority, it would be harder to use effectively in large, spread out countries. So, more concentrated (tall) countries will use the decree much more effectively.

Again, thanks for this post and explanation.

Glad it was of help! It seems we arrived at the same conclusion regarding large empires and Authority. My run was with Haiti, and being just 2 provinces small helped lots with the meager alotment of Authority. (But the lack of trade convoys caused massive unemployment issues instead.)