What is the value of a University education? To the individual, and to society as a whole?

[baxus]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Does it? How so? Again you are alluding to some vaguely defined set of skills that can only be provided by university education that allows candidates to move between jobs. Are those skills not able to be picked up whilst doing a job? If I worked in an office since I was 18 are there not a set of skills I would have picked up that might mean I am even more flexible in my ability to move, compared to someone who has spent 3 years writing essays.

I'm not alluding to anything. I'm stating outright that in my first job I've faced a whole new environment. And I'm not talking about office environment and all that, I'm talking about a tech stack entirely new to me. Something I've never used or seen before - from a completely unknown OS to software and tech concepts. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if I stepped out of university into some extremely high tech stuff that only a select few can grasp, but it was still an unknown. The stuff I learned in university made it possible for me to be a productive team member within a week or two. Had I not the experience gathered in university, it would be much more difficult for me to adapt.

Not saying that university is the only place where you can learn what I learned there, especially nowadays when everything is pretty much available online. If you can learn all that on your own, more power to you. But you do need to learn it if you're planning on a career in that field.

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I'd say comparing an 18 year old to a 23 year old is the real Apples and Orange scenario and pretty unfair. Of course someone who is 5 years older would be more likely to be more mature and do less 'stupid shit'. 

Saying that a difference would only be being 5 years older is a gross oversimplification.

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The question is comparing 2 people who are both 23. One spent years in a university learning how to be in a university, and the other spent years in office jobs, no matter how menial, learning how to work in a professional environment. The assumption being made by Gorn in this case was that the uni student would be far better prepared and less likely to do stupid shit, but I honestly cannot see how that could be true and it's a very weak assumption.

The question that you've posted is obviously flawed, and I think you are aware of that and that was the reason why you asked that one.

Why would we compare someone with 5 years experience and someone with 0 years experience? We are talking about the point at which you join a company. The company doesn't care how old you are, they will need to train and onboard you anyway. They care whether you can do the job they need you to do or not.

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Not sure I understand how this explains why grades have continued to rise over time to the point where getting a degree is the only way to differentiate between even average candidates for mid level jobs.

As DMC already stated, you are exaggerating how much grades have risen over time.

Also, the only time when my GPA was a factor was when I was enrolling high school and university, for ranking purposes. And in both instances I also had to pass an entrance exam in order to be accepted.

[Heartofice]

18 minutes ago, baxus said:

The question that you've posted is obviously flawed, and I think you are aware of that and that was the reason why you asked that one.

Why would we compare someone with 5 years experience and someone with 0 years experience? We are talking about the point at which you join a company. The company doesn't care how old you are, they will need to train and onboard you anyway. They care whether you can do the job they need you to do or not.

I think you are misunderstanding the scenario I am painting. I'm suggesting that someone who has come straight out of school, worked in any kind of work environment for 5 years, lets say not the one in a field directly related to the job in question, would be more familiar with how to behave and act in a work environment and the expectations needed in a job, than someone who has simply been in education for that time period. I don't see any reason why a 23 year old who had been in uni would be any less likely to 'do stupid shit' than someone who has been in any form of full time employment for that period of time. Thinking that is the case is pure snobbery IMO.

[Darzin]

I'm not sure that university actually broadens the mind  or teaches critical thinking, at least not in undergrad. When I was in university you were expected to do those things and if you didn't you failed especially in community college where i started out something like 80% of the class failed or dropped out of English 101 because writing papers was never actually taught nor was critical thinking or research skills or anything else like that.

I certianly had some interesting and mind expanding classes but that was maybe 6 for my entire degree so with four years and around four classes a quater plus some summers that's around 6 out of 40 classes not a great ratio for intangibles and not worth 25k a year. But it was required for  most of the jobs I've had but its' still a horribly expensive and inefficient system. 

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I think you are misunderstanding the scenario I am painting. I'm suggesting that someone who has come straight out of school, worked in any kind of work environment for 5 years, lets say not the one in a field directly related to the job in question, would be more familiar with how to behave and act in a work environment and the expectations needed in a job, than someone who has simply been in education for that time period. I don't see any reason why a 23 year old who had been in uni would be any less likely to 'do stupid shit' than someone who has been in any form of full time employment for that period of time. Thinking that is the case is pure snobbery IMO.

Sure, but again that's apples and oranges. And again, what company is willing to hire those 18 year olds and spend years training them and dealing with their stupid shit? 

It also HIGHLY depends on the work environment in question. Working in fast food does not meaningfully prepare you for working in corporate jobs. Working in retail doesn't help you very much working as a software engineer. Working in a kitchen is a massively different way to act than working in sales, and what counts as 'professionalism' in one is almost diametrically opposed to what it is in another. 

[Week]

Here's the next step after universities -

 

Faster, cheaper delivery of labor to capital for exploitation (learn only what companies *think* you should learn.) 

[baxus]

19 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I think you are misunderstanding the scenario I am painting. I'm suggesting that someone who has come straight out of school, worked in any kind of work environment for 5 years, lets say not the one in a field directly related to the job in question, would be more familiar with how to behave and act in a work environment and the expectations needed in a job, than someone who has simply been in education for that time period. I don't see any reason why a 23 year old who had been in uni would be any less likely to 'do stupid shit' than someone who has been in any form of full time employment for that period of time. Thinking that is the case is pure snobbery IMO.

I'm not misunderstanding anything. Your logic is flawed. You are comparing people at 2 very different positions in their lives and expecting a relevant result. If pointing out flawed logic in a debate is snobbery, I guess I'm a snob then.

And by the way, I think you are overestimating the complexity of behaving in a work environment and grasping expectations needed in a job, and by quite a margin. It basically comes down to "you do this this way and you do that that way, and here's the kitchen, and off you go", especially in jobs you described as menial.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, baxus said:

And by the way, I think you are overestimating the complexity of behaving in a work environment and grasping expectations needed in a job, and by quite a margin. It basically comes down to "you do this this way and you do that that way, and here's the kitchen, and off you go", especially in jobs you described as menial.

By that same logic I'd suggest you are grossly underestimating how much someone can learn in even menial jobs. Even working in a fast food restaurant you learn the expectations of actually having a job, a level of personal responsibility, working with others, being in charge of others, you might learn accounting even on a basic level. Something I think becomes incredibly important in jobs and is under-valued is learning how deal with people, but customers and other colleagues and your superiors, plus learning the language of work. 

The whole point of this was the suggestion that there is some superior set of skills that you pick up at uni that prepares you for a job in a way you cannot get by simply working during that period, and I just disagree. 

What I think companies do is make a series of assumptions based on prejudice about people and roles, which yeah I think has a level of snobbery about it and doesn't really tie into the reality of life.

If I compared two people with equal school grades, in a sliding doors moment, one version goes to work in McDonalds, the other goes off and does some vague degree in.. I dunno media or philosophy. They both come back at 23 and apply for a job, a middling starter job doing admin in a office, yeah I'm sure they will give the job to the one with a degree.. but should they?

If that McDonalds version had done 5 years and worked their way up to manager of a branch, they would have had far more real world experience to the one who had spent a few years writing essays and going to lectures. They would have picked up far more skills which are relevant to working in that office environment to the one who did a degree. Yet I can't see Mr Maccy D's ever getting that job. 

[baxus]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

By that same logic I'd suggest you are grossly underestimating how much someone can learn in even menial jobs. Even working in a fast food restaurant you learn the expectations of actually having a job, a level of personal responsibility, working with others, being in charge of others, you might learn accounting even on a basic level. Something I think becomes incredibly important in jobs and is under-valued is learning how deal with people, but customers and other colleagues and your superiors, plus learning the language of work.

Yeah, you could suggest that, but you'd be wrong. I have never underestimated any job. It's just that I don't think that "handling an office environment" is such a difficult task. At least it wasn't for me so far. Other than some company-specific stuff, it's basically requires a skill set one should grasp in early stages of elementary school - playing well with others, recognising and respecting hierarchy, doing your "homework", doing a team project etc.

Btw, accounting on a basic level is a useful skill and will help you understand some things you otherwise wouldn't, but it will not land you a job.

11 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The whole point of this was the suggestion that there is some superior set of skills that you pick up at uni that prepares you for a job in a way you cannot get by simply working during that period, and I just disagree. 

Well, it does, doesn't it? You do go to the university to learn new stuff, that's the whole point. I mean, once I graduated from university a lot of doors opened for me that wouldn't be open straight out of high school, or even after a couple of years of working experience straight after high school.

15 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

What I think companies do is make a series of assumptions based on prejudice about people and roles, which yeah I think has a level of snobbery about it and doesn't really tie into the reality of life.

Well, while there's definitely snobbery, it does depend on what position we're talking about here. How big this space of jobs that university graduates in philosophy and McDonald's workers apply for?

18 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

If I compared two people with equal school grades, in a sliding doors moment, one version goes to work in McDonalds, the other goes off and does some vague degree in.. I dunno media or philosophy. They both come back at 23 and apply for a job, a middling starter job doing admin in a office, yeah I'm sure they will give the job to the one with a degree.. but should they?

The person with a media or philosophy degree applying for a starter job doing admin in an office has made some wrong turns along the way.

[Rippounet]

13 hours ago, Week said:

Here's the next step after universities -

Faster, cheaper delivery of labor to capital for exploitation (learn only what companies *think* you should learn.) 

Yeah, it's hard not to see where this is going.

By the way, one pretty important point that wasn't even mentioned is that many (possibly most) students do have a "menial" job, and many programs require an internship for the degree. I'm not even sure comparing university graduates to people working at McDonalds is that pertinent in the first place...
 

[baxus]

30 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Yeah, it's hard not to see where this is going.

By the way, one pretty important point that wasn't even mentioned is that many (possibly most) students do have a "menial" job, and many programs require an internship for the degree. I'm not even sure comparing university graduates to people working at McDonalds is that pertinent in the first place...
 

How very snobbish of you.   

[James Arryn]

I worked all through undergrad and sort of off and on through grad. I’d say most of my classmates did too, but tbh I don’t really have any way of being certain of that broadly, just that…maybe engineering aside…it seemed like most of my school friends had something on the side. 

[VigoTheCarpathian]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Yeah, it's hard not to see where this is going.

By the way, one pretty important point that wasn't even mentioned is that many (possibly most) students do have a "menial" job, and many programs require an internship for the degree. I'm not even sure comparing university graduates to people working at McDonalds is that pertinent in the first place...
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger_University

“Are you saying my PhD in Hamburglarly and Fry-ology isn’t applicable in this office job?”

Education and specialization is important for an individual’s value in the market, and entirely depends what market you are wanting to get in with your labor.  if you want to be valuable to McDonalds as a cog for their machine, go to their university.  For me as a manager who went this path (customer service for 5 years, degree, analytics for 17 years), anundergrad in a semi-adjacent field (sciences, social science, math) is going to get hired above that mid-manager for most because of the necessary tools to be successful, or which the student is going to require much less “retooling”/training than someone who is narrowly focused in a non-adjacent field.  
 

A lot of college kids don’t know where exactly what their post degree market is going to be, and if it’s something they can and want to do for the rest of their lives - and it sucks when it doesn’t line up and they are in debt.  But it’s ridiculous to posit that “real world experience” means more than a degree unless it’s in an identical field.
 

Edited May 19, 2023 by VigoTheCarpathian
Additional clarification based on personal experience

[Zorral]

Pretty hard to get the masteries one needs to be a certified librarian w/o going through the Information Sciences programs, particularly now when everything is digital.  Of course, They have fixed that for us all by getting rid of libraries.

They started with cutting funding fully credentialed professional librarians in favor of much cheaper positions for nearly everything, particularly the face front ones, that actually deal with users and books.

This is not to say that those who have a lot of experience already working with databases and so on can't get hired for what is now the essential of librarianship, the financing and negotiation of all the digital vendors and suppliers of so much what is now 'the library,' as opposed to ye olden daze, ended in the 90's, when it was books.

But as I say, this is all pretty much going moot as books and libraries are being disappeared all across the country by the fascists.  This is going to be particularly tough for certain sorts of lawyers who need a fully experienced staff to help them track down all sorts of cases and so, particularly in the days before the cut-off for digitization of all that information.  Much isn't digitized, in case people don't know that.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Zorral

[horangi]

6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

If that McDonalds version had done 5 years and worked their way up to manager of a branch, they would have had far more real world experience to the one who had spent a few years writing essays and going to lectures. They would have picked up far more skills which are relevant to working in that office environment to the one who did a degree. Yet I can't see Mr Maccy D's ever getting that job. 

Having been a manager at various levels with decades of hiring folks, I'd be picking the philosophy major 95% of the time (assuming we are talking a 'white collar' job).  First, it is likely the fast food worker will need to unlearn a lot of their training, particularly the rote following of checklists/protocols, expectation of supervisors to make decisions that fall outside of said checklists, and the 'customer is always right' service mind (I want staff who embrace just culture habits of transparency and respectful directness in communications).  Tell me I am wrong, when you think I am wrong.  Second, its much easier to train the technical skills to someone with good critical thinking capability then to teach critical thinking to a technical expert lacking them.  I need folks who thrive well in an arena where they can tackle unexpected challenges- fundamentally, they have learned how to learn (e.g. philosophy).  If the job I am looking to fill requires just following protocol over and over, I'd rather train-up or hire someone in robotic process automation to eliminate the need and then have them do other useful things in other areas. 

Actually, when I first read your post, I was thinking, yeah I have some examples where you are right.  I've a bit of a reputation for being able to find diamonds in the rough, particularly from office assistant/secretarial staff who were looked over due to the stereotype.  But sadly when I did a mental review of the ones I hired, all the ones that became super stars in the office had an undergraduate degree and all the ones that buckled when given higher levels of responsibility and autonomy were from a blue collar high-school educated background.  On the contrary several blue-collar background folks that worked their way through college before joining my team have been quite successful due to a certain grit and determination.  But there is a lot of self-selection going on, since they likely had greater desire to prove the world wrong, on average, then their peers.

Edited May 19, 2023 by horangi

[Kalbear]

I mean, that's another thing about it - university graduates have shown at least an ability if not a real drive to learn more. That's a major key in a lot of positions. Other jobs can have that too, mind you, but it isn't universal.

Is that worth what people are paying? No, not at all. But for an employer it is definitely a big deal for a whole lot of jobs. 

[Darzin]

On 5/19/2023 at 5:14 AM, Week said:

Here's the next step after universities -

 

Faster, cheaper delivery of labor to capital for exploitation (learn only what companies *think* you should learn.) 

I wouldn't exclude universities from Capital, when most students are being taught by adjuncts making slave wages and paying exorbitant fees and going into tens of thousands dollars worth of debt on average. Given that there is a huge glut of liberal arts Phds willing to work for very low wages to have a chance to teach their subject, something is severely broken in higher education. It's not so much that a liberal arts degree isn't worth it, it's whether it's worth the current cost and the answer to that is probably not.

You can say viewing college as a job training program is cynical and conservative and yet students and parents don't pay for degrees based on intangibles, they are paying for an accredited degree. Otherwise they could listen to Harvard lectures and read books for free. Take away the accreditation and degree and all those parents who want their students to "study for the sake of knowledge and an open mind" are gonna go elsewhere the degree is the point as much as the education and for liberal arts it doesn't matter what the degree is in as long as you have it, which meets your class and white collar expectations.

Anecdotally there were several programs at my university that were essentially  run by the industry they produced workers for, Paper engineering being the big one, you got an automatic scholarship from the industry association and they were heavily involved in the actual academic program. And they didn't teach you to vote Republican or lobby for lower taxes for corporations. It was  a highly technical program that produced engineers for paper plants, whether you work as an engineer or at McDonald's your still laboring for capital so I don't get the fearmongering over "industry training."

[dog-days]

I can't say I recognise the critical-thinking-driven Platonic ideal of a workplace that some have been describing. The ones I've seen have often contained nice, smart people, sometimes in management positions, but with decisions driven by budgetary constraints, office politics and rivalries, personal ambition, organisational hierarchies (grade xx wants z, better give it to him) government regulation, local culture, and by what everyone else in the sector is doing. None of which you need a degree for. Possibly the critical thinking bubbles arise only once your salary passes the £50/60,000 mark. 

I don't doubt that the modern economy needs highly-skilled people. In the way that the 1870 Education Act helped create a literate population, the UK needs to give its population the means to fill the type of jobs that are now available. The stuff about degrees not being for work but for an individual's moral and social edification sounds very nice on paper, but in practice for anyone that would like to be building a life for themselves in their twenties rather than taking more top-up qualifications to try and get an entry-level position paying peanuts, reality can mar the high aspirations.

This applies especially to women who think they might want children, but aren't prepared to risk it until they know they have a solid career and salary to count on. I would discourage any daughter of mine from taking a humanities, languages or arts degree. Not because I don't believe they're worthwhile, but because they aren't enough on their own in the modern economy. Confidence, charisma, connections are necessary to get anywhere with them. 

In the UK, following the fading-out of the polytechnics and specialist colleges, the universities seem to have fallen into the roll of providing all kinds of HE-level training along with some support from further education colleges, which often work in partnerships with universities, doing the teaching and letting the university approve the award. 

In my experience, having done a postgraduate qualification aimed at a particular career that was once provided by a specialist body which got merged into a university a number of years before I started, the dominance of universities isn't necessarily a good thing. A group of lecturers who've spent the last decade focused on their REF results aren't necessarily the best people to teach about trends in the modern-day profession, even if some of the theory they covered wasn't without value. Just over-represented. 

But that was just one course, and UK universities are diverse. The 'Russell Group' band are what people generally mean when they talk about universities, offering full-time courses running on the traditional academic calendar for eighteen-year-olds with A-Levels. e.g. University of Manchester course list. Compare that to the offerings of somewhere like Newman University (ex teaching college), serving a principally local population, and offering three-year BAs, yes, but also various Foundation courses, top-up degrees, and 'accelerated' i.e. short degrees. Degree apprenticeships at Aston. Are these valuable? It could vary hugely from location to location and subject to subject. And from student to student. If you can sell yourself, the certificate is a useful key to open the doors to interviews. If not, maybe you should have chosen to study an area that would have made employers chase after you. 

That's before getting onto the topic of marketisation in the UK HE sector, which means that in many cases a degree proves fuck-all about the graduate except that the university awarding it needed money. I've seen an undergraduate dissertation that was only one-third complete given a passing mark because that's just how things rolled. Ever since then, I've been pretty suspicious about what happens on a lot of degree courses. Also: essay mills, AI assignments, and who has money and is willing to spend it... So it goes. But it's probably always been that way. This is perhaps more of a return to the status quo than anything else, thinking of the days when universities were largely a finishing school for the upper classes. 

Edited May 20, 2023 by dog-days

[Rippounet]

One's perspective on the issue depends on whether one lives in a country where higher education is expensive or free.
BTW, on one end of the spectrum, Denmark provides its students with income.
States can and do lessen the question of cost-efficiency from the equation (though seldom eliminate it altogether). The value of degrees therefore isn't actually determined by a market, it is a political decision.
What's the value of a university education? What a society decides it should be.