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Is university a waste of time?
May 23, 2012 - 3:21pm
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I've been thinking about and talking about this a fair bit lately.
First, there have been the mass protests in Quebec, there has been the Occupy protests where lots of college/university graduates are angry over the state of the economy generally and their inability to find jobs, specifically.
This past Sunday on 60 Minutes, there was a story on Peter Thiel, who was a founder of PayPal and early investor in Facebook who has this new fellowship program where he gives $100,000 grants to promising people with ideas who are 20 and under, on the condition that they drop out of school and work full time on their idea. He calls his 7 years at Stanford (4 for undergrad, 3 for law school) the biggest regret of his life because he could have been doing other, bigger, better things.
Obviously, most people aren't going to start the next PayPal or Facebook out of their dorm. But, generally, I'm wondering if people think university is really worth it anymore. I was just reading an article in The Atlantic, that for hte first time, the majority of those unemployed, have a university education.
In many areas, it seems that all universities really offer is a credential, as opposed to any real skills that will be valuable. If you want to go into a specific profession, those credentials are necessary. I'm a dentist, so obviously I had to go to dental school. At the same time, while I got great dental training, I don't feel that my very expensive education really provided much "education" beyond that. More like training in a specific skill. Others who might get a good education in, say, English or Philosophy, would have the opposite problem. They're well-educated but not really qualified for any specific job.
And, as education gets more and more expensive, is it really worth it. There's a great line in Good Will Hunting where this Harvard guy is belittling Matt Damon's character (a genius but with no fancy degree) by quoting from theorists. And Damon's character points out that he's going to have a sad realization one day when he realizes that he wasted a quarter million dollars on an education he could have gotten for a few bucks in late fees at the public library.
Thoughts?
Greetings. I opened an account just to respond to your question.
University is most definitely worth it. I've recently gone back myself after taking 23 semesters off. Compared to working for The Man, school is a mere bagatelle. Last fall I learned to appreciate movies more, write my own programs in C++ and that Regina doesn't need a new stadium. And now that my academic probation is lifted, I get to choose from all kinds of neat classes to take this fall. In October I take a whack at the LSAT. I'm having a great time! What more could a fellow ask for?
Here is an interesting slideshow. I'm not qualified to critic the statistical analysis but it seems to me its conclusion is correct.
The higher the level of education achieved the higher the chance that the individual is employed. I read somewhere in the last couple of days but can't find it now that something like 70% of new jobs require post secondary education of some sort.
That to me is a bonus on top of the fact of the education itself. Education can be an enlightening and liberating experience and is a social good in and of itself.
http://www.slideshare.net/serenewongg/education-vs-unemployment-and-empl...
I would wonder, however, if the correlation between higher education and employment is declining.
I would also question whether it's going to be worth it soon, given the cost. Does the better odds of employment and higher salary (if they still exist) make it worthwhile to go significantly into debt? I mean, I went into debt to get my education but I had a pretty clear career path and was able to pay it back within a reasonable timeframe. But, if someone goes 50 grand into debt to get a degree in, say, English Lit, will that be a worthwhile investment.
It seems like learning a skilled trade would be a better investment for a lot of people. A good mechanic can make $100,000 a year and find a job fairly easily while someone who toils for years on a humanities or arts BA may have a lot of trouble getting a job and, when they do, not at the greatest salary. Because everyone is getting them, the value of them is declining big team. It no longer makes you stand out, unless you got to a really impressive school like a Harvard and, even there, I question if it's worth it. My sister-in-law graduated Harvard (undergrad). Her sister (my wife) went to City University of New York. Harvard was about 10 times the price. Is it a better school? Yes. Is it ten times better? I don't know. Particularly if you then want to go to grad school or professional school, where quality of school matters a lot more.
My thoughts? Learning for its own sake is never a bad idea. The fact that a university education is increasingly out of reach for so many is a huge concern, because it raises the kind of anti-intellectual points you raised in your post.
If you don't value critical thinking then university probably isn't for you. If you think only a select few, destined to become the wealthy ruling elite, should attend university, then hikes in tuition fees are a great way to weed out the "less advantaged". If you think that scientific innovation and advances in the medical sciences don't require anything but the practical knowledge needed to make money, then by all means, let's establish trade schools for doctors and dentists. After all, who needs a heart surgeon who had to read The Stone Angel?
Does having a university degree(s) make one a morally superior person? Well no, of course not. Does having a degree mean you're smarter than people who never went to university? Hell no -- some of the stupidest people I know have a string of letters after their names. In fact, some of the brightest people never finished high school, or were at best mediocre students.
Not everyone wants to or needs to attend university. But absolutely everyone should have the choice.
I think one has to ask what one's expectations are, and whether the university can meet those expectations.
Exactly.
I worry though that universities have sort of become "gatekeepers" to mainsteam success because so many people feel that they need that piece of paper.
I know lots of people for whom university was 4 years of getting drunk constantly, sleeping late, rarely reading the books, skipping class and doing just enough work to pass. But they now have credentials that officially declare them as educated. Whereas someone who doesn't go the university route and just reads all the books and really gets deeply into them and has more knowledge isn't recognized as such.
I'm all for learning for it's own sake. I just don't know that this is what universities are about anymore (with some exceptions). Because of digital technologies, all of the world's information is so accessible that universities can't really be gatekeepers of this knowledge anymore. I can buy an iPad for $500 and get all of the same knowledge that you can get in some university courses.
If we look at education at any level as a means to employment, then we are already looking at it the wrong way. After being in university for around a decade, I can say with confidence that the only time ever wasted were the four spent discussing James Fenimore Cooper.
Ha! I'm still reeling from the tag team lecturing by two arch conservatives on the origins of political thought. How the hell do you turn Plato into an object lesson on the evils of political discourse?
I'm proud to say that I got most of my formal edumacation at military schools. You should have seen the stuff they wrote all over my treatment of the Boer War.
Tommy Paine would be very interested in what you have to say on the Boer War
Here's that great line, in a bit of context:
Yes, a great line. Nevertheless, for most students, surely the desire to avoid ending up on the wrong side of the drive-through window is more powerful motivation than the need to be original or authentic.
Similar questions came up here I agree with a great deal of the criticism of post-secondary education mentioned in this thread. I'll even go out on a limb and suggest that financially, you may be better off not getting a degree, because when you consider the number of educated people who are underemployed or unemployed, if you skip the degree, at the very least you won't have such a high debt load. I also think that the huge problem of students scraping by, as mentioned by Mr. Tea, is because high school students have it pounded into their heads that they need a university education or else they are doomed to a life of poverty. Also, 18 years of age can be considered the general age of admission for university, but how much life experience does a typical 18-year-old have? Especially to go from a high school environment where they watch you closely to an environment where they just don't care, and also consider that many students who are moving away from home experience severe difficulties as well. One way around that, I think, is to require not only that the age of admission to university be raised to 20, but that it should also be contingent upon some other life experience (i.e. work, volunteering, exchange programs, what have you). This releives some of the pressure on students to make up their minds right away and gives them a more firm foundation upon which to stand.
Something else about income and requirements. There may be a correlation between education and income, and many jobs do require specific degrees. But where I worked, I was hired without having that specific degree they requested, and the people who were the best performers in my unit were those who had been with the company for a while in several departments and just knew their way around the buiness. I suspect that is the case often, because each workplace is different and there are so many things to learn on the job anyways.
One of my colleagues made the following not-really-serious but kind of interesting, or at least provocative, suggestion. (1) Remove all direct government funding for education, and allow universities to charge sufficient tuition to cover costs, about $30K. (2) Give every citizen or resident $180K if and when they graduate from high school. They can spend this $180K on university or other post-secondary education, if they wish to -- and it will even cover modest student-style living costs (about 15K per year, which can be supplemented with summer jobs). Or they can use it to start a business. Or put a down payment on a house. Or put it in a savings account. Or spend it on whatever they want. This will encourage everyone to finish high school. it will also make university almost universally available. But it won't distribute state resources more generously to those who choose to go to university than to those who choose not to go to university. This plan could be tweaked, of course, but the general outline is to provide every citizen -- whether or not they choose any post-secondary education -- with the same life start-up funds, and make sure that it's enough for a standard four-year university education. Of course, the money for this plan would have to come from somewhere, but the same can be said of any plan that effectively funds everyone's post-secondary education (including modest living expenses).
Things were different back in the 60s and 70s. The concept of an arts and science post-secondary education was considered essential - my first college diploma got me an awesome job with the feds, which I later quit because my new boss was such a dick. I would have stayed with tha job if the guy that hired me hadn't left. Automatic raises, good promotion and other opportunities. The job I eventually settled in a few years later required both my BA and Master's degree. I guess times have changed, and not for the better, it appears.
I've always thought of a good arts and sciences education as rather essential to both appreciate the world around us, and to survive in it.
I have spent the last 31 years either studying or working at universities. obviously I think they are not a waste of time. The main purpose of universities is the creation,preservation and distribution of knowledge. Albeit there has always been an element of credentialing since the beginning when the universities provided clerks for the Church and burgeoning state bureaucracies. The very model of degrees is based on the apprenticeship model.
To consider a university education purely in monetary terms would be a mistake. Do I and Ms. C have higher incomes because we graduated from university? Probably. Am I happier for having spent 30+ years at universities? Definitely.
It's main focus was on the stark difference and multiple reasons thereof between sending troops off to serve the Empire in smaller groups absorbed within British tactical formations under their field commanders, as was the case with Canada's involvement in the second Boer War, and Canada's insistence by the time of the First World War of having troops serve in their own larger formations under Canadian commanders. It contained a segue that explored the movement toward liberal reforms within the Empire, specifically where it concerned taking stock of the general population's health status, and their usefulness toward imperial adventures, just as any rancher would be interested in the general health and welfare of the herd as a commodity. Regardless of what it is today, universal health care when considered as the culmination of a thought process originating from the exigencies of imperialism, amounted to an ingenious adaptation that had the population involuntarily paying from its own labour to improve its use value according to the categories of an evolving empire, the requirements of which are still being imposed upon citizens today.
It sounds good but I can say that at 19 my son would have taken the cash and headed for an extended overseas travel experience. He did do a short Europe trip so I know he would have loved the chance to just see the world. He would then have arrived back home with a wonderful world view but facing $30,000 a year tuition. He was not ready to settle down and get to serious studies until he was 22.
I think that tuition for post secondary education should be free and that includes access to trades training and technical schools. We need a diversity of people with a wide range of skills. The trick is to offer the whole range of studies to all youth so they can be empowered to become what they want to become.
The real question here is: "Is a liberal arts education worth it".
Yes. I was the first person in my family to go to university and get a liberal arts education. Most of my high school cohort did not go to school.
Not only am I better off financially with my artsy-fartsy Bachelor of Fine Arts, but that education has made a tremendous difference in how I see the world, what values I have and my understanding of social and political structures. It opened up a worldview that I otherwise would not have discovered. It changed me deeply.
An interesting thing, here, too - If I had been able to opt out, I probably wouldn't have taken maths or science or history. Well, maybe the history. But if I could have limited myself to the arts when I started university, I would have. Being in a liberal arts program made it necessary for me to stretch my horizons in ways that I wouldn't have done on my own and got me curious about some things that are adding to my life and work to this day. The Good Will Hunting quote is nice, but give me a library card and I'll study my natural inclination, but I won't be as likely to look at much else. I don't think most people are much different.
And then there's the mentorships and perspectives of the different profs I studied under. Some were total duds, but there were some terrific profs who challenged me and got me exploring directions I would not have found without a guide. Going to the library isn't the same thing. It's not just about the books. I'm a bit of an auto-didact (helps with what I do now, in documentary production and development), but most people aren't and we all benefit from a good teacher.
Worth the debt? Every bit of it, although I'd like to see us stop visiting that debt on our young people. I echo kropotkin - all post-secondary education should be free and accessible to those who want it.
well most of my favorite thinkers, artists etc were self taught. But most of the interesting scientists went to school. i guess it depends on what field you want to study.
No, I think there's a strong value, if you're in the arts, to have some formal education. Very few artists are completely self-taught, even if they claim they are. Often, if you scratch the surface, there's some sort of mentorship if not formal "schooling". For example, I know filmmakers who did not go to film school, but learned a lot from working with others through artist-run centres and the like.
Its not a complete waste of time.
An undergaduate degree is a bit waste of a time if you cant afford to stay in school forever to get a master/PHD degree,
if you are not supersmart or if you dont have parents you can live with forever (and not having to pay rent), than an undergraduate degree might not be worth it because young people from poor families have to work and pay bills, young people who can depend on their parents for living rent free can and should go for post secondary education and take a number of unpaid internships only avaliable to post secondary students and net work with other middle class upper class folks.
a better question is "is university a waste of time for Poor families"
Only if you want to entrench class divisions.
It was easier to work your way through university back in the '80s when I went. I know it's a difficult thing to do now, and that's why I'd like to see tuition free to those who are able to do the work. I can say that, growing up without much money and without any parental support, I would still say go for it.
Post secondary education should be free with perhaps exceptions made for private institutions that have a specialized clientele. Governments can choose to fully fund all education from general tax revenues. Drop tax breaks to profitable corporations, for starters. Why this country subsidizes big oil is beyond me. No one who wants a higher education should be denied just on the basis of finances alone.
Where did anyone say you needed a degree to post? And just because someone thinks going to university is a good thing, it doesn't mean that they don't respect or value those who haven't. They are not mutually exclusive positions.
I've watched Larry Crowne - about an older guy who gets laid off from his job, and goes to university to learn all over again. I'm retired, but if there was a college or university nearby, I'd sign up just for the experience. Not sure what I want to study, though.