# Why do people think that higher education should be for job?



## The red spirit (Sep 29, 2015)

I know it sounds idealistic and unrealistic, but why people think that going to college or university should be related to their job opportunities? I sort of understand them, but at the same time don't. Those institutions are meant to teach people and broader their understanding of things that they care about. They make society smarter and help self-development. They explain why things happen the way they do and perhaps offer motivational "kick in the nuts" for somebody to do something. However, it seems that masses go just for paper and actually pay for education with expectations that it will pay off. I dislike this kind of people, really do, but at the same time I wish I truly understood why they treat those institutions as trade schools or financial assets.


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## 543452 (Mar 15, 2015)

To answer your question how I think of it, people equate high quality jobs to degrees instead of pure knowledge because to them, credentials hold credence to the wielders knowledge and/or aptitude. In my opinion, that very judgement is ludicrous. Knowledge cannot be gauged by a stupid piece of paper. In fact, I'm pretty certain that the most knowledgeable people in the world are as smart as they are not because of college, but because of their pure love for their chosen specialty.


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## ImpossibleHunt (May 30, 2020)

I find that credentials are just a tool for people to move forward. It *may* mean that you may know more about a specific subject, but it doesn't make the person automatically smarter, or inherently correct.
That is why I dislike when people tell me to inherently "trust the experts". For all I know, the experts could be wrong, since a degree does not mean someone is inherently right.
If someone even has 1% chance of being wrong, that possibility is there. It is important for people to be aware of that fact, and to not let people with credentials off the hook.

I find that people can teach themselves and learn just as much as you would in college.
For example, I taught myself history and writing on my own time, and took little advice from my actual courses.
But of course, some jobs require college education. That is stupid, and it just diminishes the worth of a college education altogether.
This is coming from someone who likes the environment of universities, and hopes to become a professor one day.

To be blunt, I think most jobs shouldn't require college.
Instead, I think there should be some sort of test for job applicants to take that gauges their levels of knowledge of that field, but it should contain information people can learn on their own.
But forcing people to spend loads of money for something they could probably learn on their own, I don't think is the rational option.
For one, the universities are not held to any sort of accountability that way, since people don't have any other choice but to accept whatever decision the universities make.
They can drive the prices up as much as they want, and can start making dumb decisions, because they know they'll make the money anyway because there will always be a need for college education, because lots of jobs require it to begin with.

Instead, why not offer college as a choice? Stop making it a prerequisite. 
Some people don't know where to begin looking for information, and at least colleges and universities offer all of the information in one spot.
At least that way, prices may go down (since people now have the option to teach themselves), and colleges would be forced to deliver a more quality focused education. Give people more options. 
That way, maybe a college education will go back to being a place to expand your knowledge in a meaningful way. Instead of just being a glorified checklist.
Also, if the university makes a decision people don't agree with, then the average person has more power to alter those decisions. 

I might just be salty towards my university though, so there is that bias to consider.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

The red spirit said:


> I know it sounds idealistic and unrealistic, but why people think that going to college or university should be related to their job opportunities? I sort of understand them, but at the same time don't. Those institutions are meant to teach people and broader their understanding of things that they care about. They make society smarter and help self-development. They explain why things happen the way they do and perhaps offer motivational "kick in the nuts" for somebody to do something. However, it seems that masses go just for paper and actually pay for education with expectations that it will pay off. I dislike this kind of people, really do, but at the same time I wish I truly understood why they treat those institutions as trade schools or financial assets.


I'm a Navy veteran with two college degrees. I used my GI bill to help pay for my undergrad. My undergrad is in education and my masters is in CIS. I only taught for two years before I sought life elsewhere. One of the managers who hired me said that one of the things she liked about college graduates is that they finished what they started. She can work with them to gain the skills they need, but that says something about character to her. Personally, I LOVED going to college. If I could find a way to make a living while taking classes, I probably would have never left, but alas, I had lots of debt and the only way to pay it was to seek gainful employment. 

As for my undergrad? Sure, I got a broader understanding of the world and my place in it, but what it really did was teach me advanced reference skills. I knew how to find sources for papers that nobody else would think to use. When I first got there, the college library had recently converted their card catalog to a primitive monochrome computer system that had this really cool Boolean logic search function. I started toying around with that thing until I could make it sing with results. I must have written 300 papers for my undergrad, and probably another 50 or so for grad school. I got very good at it (average length was 10 pages with references. The longest was 88 pages). I also minored in theatre, so I spent my Summers building sets, running the light board, and patching the sound board. It was hella fun! I also worked in a computer lab, did the grounds crew, and eventually was a Grad Assistant in the dorms for a couple of semesters. I did my undergrad in the early-to-mid 90s in a small podunk town with only one traffic light, 3 bars, and 2 gas stations. I also met my future ex-wife there! It was glorious!


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## 17041704 (May 28, 2020)

I don't think they are necessarily mutually exclusive.
You can learn stuff while also setting yourself up for job opportunities.
It really depends what you want to do with the degree.
One can pay tuition for 4 years and ask for no return other than a better understanding of this world it's their choice.

Credentials is basically the "signalling" referred in information economics where candidates differentiate themselves from the others like peacocks which also happens to reduce costs for employers to distinguish candidates of different qualities. One may say it's a branding strategy. When you buy a Ferrari you are also buying something else. Safety, reassurance, reliability and excellence implied in the brand. Still that machine can break down in a week's time why are you paying that extra money.

Recruitment is a costly (not just monetary costs, the full costs - the amount of time and resources spent) exercise for the employer to find the right person with limited information available to them among thousands and thousands of candidates knocking their door. If employers can shift part of the costs to the applicants why not? They are the ones who are paying the salaries after all.

The premiums they pay out to people they believe to be of better quality / better credentials is nothing comparing to the full costs they would have to bear if they are screening candidates with no other aids. True nothing is certain especially when it comes to people you hire and everyone knows that.

What they are doing is not just to get the right people, they are trying to get the right people at the lowest cost possible essentially they are placing bets for assurance like getting insurance you pay premiums. They hand out premiums to attract a portion of people who are more likely to be someone they are looking for so they can forget the rest and also the costs associated with these people who likely end up irrelevant anyway.

If one is of the view that it is crazy to believe in credentials then it must be crazy to believe in any kinds of brand as well. Next question we will have to ask ourselves would be why are we buying this brand and not others? Is there any guarantee in that? What are we paying for exactly?


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## eeo (Aug 25, 2020)

They don't have any other choice any more. That piece of paper has become a symbol that shows you're supposed to have knowledge and skills, perseverance to see things through, and therefore, you could be a valuable employee. It's been devalued so much that it doesn't mean you're the best person for the job, it's not going to guarantee you a job, but it's likely that without it you won't even be considered for a job. 

@tanstaafl28 Sounds like you've had the best college experience. I've been to college several times, but, unfortunately, never felt that satisfied with the whole experience even when I did it for fun.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

eeo said:


> They don't have any other choice any more. That piece of paper has become a symbol that shows you're supposed to have knowledge and skills, perseverance to see things through, and therefore, you could be a valuable employee. It's been devalued so much that it doesn't mean you're the best person for the job, it's not going to guarantee you a job, but it's likely that without it you won't even be considered for a job.
> 
> @tanstaafl28 Sounds like you've had the best college experience. I've been to college several times, but, unfortunately, never felt that satisfied with the whole experience even when I did it for fun.


Well it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, and I graduated with my bachelors 23 years ago. Times have definitely changed. The Internet and Web were not a thing when I first got there.


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## The red spirit (Sep 29, 2015)

ImpossibleHunt5 said:


> I find that people can teach themselves and learn just as much as you would in college.
> For example, I taught myself history and writing on my own time, and took little advice from my actual courses.
> But of course, some jobs require college education. That is stupid, and it just diminishes the worth of a college education altogether.
> This is coming from someone who likes the environment of universities, and hopes to become a professor one day.
> ...


And I kind of disagree. It's understandable that people can sometimes learn more and become better experts than college graduates in some fields, but college/university should be a place of standardized level of achievement reaching place. Aka, it should make sure that certain level of knowledge and skills is achieved and maintained. 

In my opinion institution like college/university should exist, but the way it is run should be very different. I think that understanding that bunch of students should be taught at once is wrong as it ignores personal needs and thus makes learning absolutely inneficient and unhelpful. The worst offender of this are lectures with over 100 students. In such scenario being there means that you effectively have someone else for bunch of people to read study materials. And there will be various kinds of people with big dissatisfactions, here are some:
the ones who understand things too slow
the ones who think that lecturer is being too slow
the ones that don't understand some very specific thing in materials
the bozos that did nothing during other lectures and have no idea what is going on

The lectures for masses are the worst, because they ignore many problems that are created by perceived need to teach huge chunk of people at once. They simply don't work. I would say that seminars are just as bad. Lab work is kind of okay, but suffers from writing constipation. Practical activities are pretty good, but can be useless if ran poorly. 

Also besides these bad things there's one another very distinct evil of higher education. Learning materials are written piss poorly, same applies to slides too. Some are way too quickly specific and are unengaging, without explaining things enough, others can't just get to the most important ideas, some overvalue small details and etc. Either way, from many books that I read, higher education materials often have some of the worst writing humanly imaginable. They suck and are borderline useless. In many cases materials never get changed and student is expected to make sense out of word garbage, thus wasting time and losing engagement.

Another thing that I hate is that in higher education every 3-5 months your courses and lecturers change, therefore students don't really have enough time to form meaningful academic relationships, meanwhile teachers don't have enough time to understand students well and offer meaningful help or advice. For me this is the worst thing about these places. You are expected to dig deep into very specific academic ideas and concepts, yet your teachers are basically disposable as well as some studying materials. During the start of new semester there's always a lot of lag due to understanding each other and this lag inevitably affects studying quality and mid-terms results negatively. As result your average grade is dragged down by this stupid system of "disposable teachers" and "disposable students". 

It might seem that higher education institutions suck due to how they are run and what kind of people you are forced to work with, still self-learning isn't really a perfect replacement for it. You have freedom to learn things the way you want, but if you are on your own you have no-one to force you to learn harder parts or explain some things better if needed, or anyone to criticize you and force you to work on ironing out your weaknesses. You also lose labs and practice (in fields where it's important). As many people realized during corona, maintaining perseverance to do things like learning is really hard and not everyone can succeed at that. 

I would like to talk about financial side of things too, but I don't pay for higher education. However, in other countries where you absolutely have to pay for that many places are awfully overpriced and spend money unwisely. A place where I go has made many decisions that I absolutely hate and I think that if I had to pay for that, then likely I won't. However, that doesn't mean that higher education institutions are bad, it just means that rarely you get people who run such places to react to requests well. Still, many higher education institutions that students have to pay for are very heavily overpriced and have abysmal teaching capabilities, where one is pretty much forced to think if colleges/universities aren't scams entirely.


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## ImpossibleHunt (May 30, 2020)

The red spirit said:


> And I kind of disagree. It's understandable that people can sometimes learn more and become better experts than college graduates in some fields, but college/university should be a place of standardized level of achievement reaching place. Aka, it should make sure that certain level of knowledge and skills is achieved and maintained.
> 
> In my opinion institution like college/university should exist, but the way it is run should be very different. I think that understanding that bunch of students should be taught at once is wrong as it ignores personal needs and thus makes learning absolutely inneficient and unhelpful. The worst offender of this are lectures with over 100 students. In such scenario being there means that you effectively have someone else for bunch of people to read study materials. And there will be various kinds of people with big dissatisfactions, here are some:
> the ones who understand things too slow
> ...


I agree with you to a certain point, I think lots of colleges and universities are run poorly because they are not accountable to their students. This due to both government intervention, and the backing of business culture.
If any firm gets a guaranteed paycheck no matter how poor their decisions may be (especially if that firm is funded by the government), they can get away with anything.
I'm not saying the instructors don't care, but this system does not encourage innovation, nor does it incentivize the university caring for the needs of each individual student.

The more students these universities have, the more money they get.
So now, instead of delivering quality education to those who meet the standards, they are now forced to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
This means these huge classes with 100 students, constantly changing courses, and every inefficient decision you can think of.

That is why I am also not in favour of making secondary education free. This only makes the problem far larger, and it puts the burden on other people (who may not even attend college to begin with) to pay for courses that will not be focused on quality, but rather, focused on appealing to the lowest common denominator. This also means larger classes, and more of a risk of students beginning to feel like just a "number in the system". 

This problem is further developing because many jobs now requires a college education. So now, universities not only have government funding backing them, but they also have business culture backing them as well. There is no accountability there for the universities to adhere to. The students have little to no power to dictate the terms of their own education, because universities know that they will get their money no matter what.

While I also believe that teaching yourself is more difficult, it should not be an option that is not left out.
I primarily taught myself economics for example. It certainly wasn't easy, but it was doable. Giving people more options on how they obtain information can only be a good thing, especially if you end up with the same amount of knowledge as the typical college student by the end of it. That is why I'm in favour of a standardized testing system for businesses to utilize, instead of looking at your credentials.

In respect to labs and whatnot, I don't know how you would achieve that learning on your own. But in that case, I think there is potential for a possible market in that area.
If we let firms compete to give people access to these labs, we can keep costs low, and firms will be more incentivized to deliver a quality course that people will be drawn to taking.
Essentially, the more we take power away from universities, the better.

So, I think there are a few things that can be done to rectify this problem.

*1.* Make the majority of the income the universities receive not dependent on how many students enroll. This may mean that some courses will be cut, and that some instructors will be laid off. But this will incentivize each instructor to teach to the best of their ability, and the university will be less likely to waste their money on trivial things.
I don't know what this new system would look like, but if we keep giving money to universities because they simply have more students attending them, there is not much the individual student can do.

*2.* Next, make a college education less essential for jobs. With less people being forced into going into college, universities will be forced to provide incentives for students to attend their courses.
Whether this will be in the form of lower prices, or more quality focused courses, I can't say. But at least with this, the students will have more "power" in the form of their wallets. If the students don't like what the university is doing, they can opt not to go., and because of business culture not backing them anymore, universities will be forced to acknowledge what student's are actually looking for.

I would like to remind you that this is a perspective of a Canadian Student. I know that there are many cultural differences in play here.


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## The red spirit (Sep 29, 2015)

ImpossibleHunt5 said:


> The more students these universities have, the more money they get.
> So now, instead of delivering quality education to those who meet the standards, they are now forced to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
> This means these huge classes with 100 students, constantly changing courses, and every inefficient decision you can think of.


In some parts of world this is so inefficient and fucked up, that private universities are forced to not fail a single student, even if student is complete morons and doesn't complete any assignments and fails exams. That's what I heard happens in some Japanese universities. 




ImpossibleHunt5 said:


> That is why I am also not in favour of making secondary education free.


Not sure to what you are referring to, but when I mentioned that university is "free" for me is due to national education system here. Basically if you have high enough grades, you get higher education for free. If you got good enough high school exam results you can get into free place. How does your place become free? Government pays for you. However, if you start getting shitty grades in college/university then you will have to pay. 

I know that this system isn't super motivating for bunch of teenagers, but honestly it does often work with people, who can't afford to pay. And once you get mature enough, that motivation to not fall below certain level gets stronger. It's a pretty good system. 

However, system is quite forgiving and there are like 30% of all students who don't "pay" (Before going to my university I thought that not going to free place is shameful as 98% students didn't pay for it, it was so weird to find out that it wasn't a case). So yeah... And in high school which was way higher level than my current uni I was required to have all subject average not lower than 8, else you will be kicked out of school. Meanwhile in university you can retake final exams, pay if you suck and etc. You are only kicked out if your average in subject is 4 and you accumulate credit debt that you can't repay.




ImpossibleHunt5 said:


> While I also believe that teaching yourself is more difficult, it should not be an option that is not left out.
> I primarily taught myself economics for example. It certainly wasn't easy, but it was doable. Giving people more options on how they obtain information can only be a good thing, especially if you end up with the same amount of knowledge as the typical college student by the end of it. That is why I'm in favour of a standardized testing system for businesses to utilize, instead of looking at your credentials.


The problem is that anyone can claim that they know XYZ, while they don't. There's no minimum level of knowledge required. Tests for hiring is an interesting idea, but I don't really know how it would play out in real world. 



ImpossibleHunt5 said:


> In respect to labs and whatnot, I don't know how you would achieve that learning on your own. But in that case, I think there is potential for a possible market in that area.
> If we let firms compete to give people access to these labs, we can keep costs low, and firms will be more incentivized to deliver a quality course that people will be drawn to taking.
> Essentially, the more we take power away from universities, the better.


Good idea. I personally had a concept of hiring personal professors to work with you and then test you, but that concept didn't have labs in mind. Renting labs is a pretty good idea if it would work reasonably well.




ImpossibleHunt5 said:


> *1.* Make the majority of the income the universities receive not dependent on how many students enroll. This may mean that some courses will be cut, and that some instructors will be laid off. But this will incentivize each instructor to teach to the best of their ability, and the university will be less likely to waste their money on trivial things.
> I don't know what this new system would look like, but if we keep giving money to universities because they simply have more students attending them, there is not much the individual student can do.


I don't think that it's a good idea. It would eliminate courses to which generally not many people come. I know some Japanese course professors, who year after year fail to form classes of at least 10 people with exception for the most basic level of Japanese. Their teaching quality is pretty good, but students just don't come there. My uni also teaches many other languages like LSL, Hebrew, Latin, Korean and I can imagine that they face similar difficulties. At least here, teacher isn't being paid the same if they have less courses to teach. It really is painful to see passionate and talented individuals being underpaid and underappreciated, just because they teach niche things.



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ImpossibleHunt5 said:



2.

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ImpossibleHunt5 said:


> Next, make a college education less essential for jobs. With less people being forced into going into college, universities will be forced to provide incentives for students to attend their courses.
> Whether this will be in the form of lower prices, or more quality focused courses, I can't say. But at least with this, the students will have more "power" in the form of their wallets. If the students don't like what the university is doing, they can opt not to go., and because of business culture not backing them anymore, universities will be forced to acknowledge what student's are actually looking for.


That's not very good. It will make education more expensive and as result there will be less students. Less students will result in less capable workforce. Also society in general may just become dumber and less respectful of science (in USA that's the biggest problem of education). 




ImpossibleHunt5 said:


> I would like to remind you that this is a perspective of a Canadian Student. I know that there are many cultural differences in play here.


Oh, there definitely are (I'm Lithuanian). I was mostly talking about removal of social element in education and reducing lack of communication. Meanwhile you are more talking about financial side of things.


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## theablekingathelstan (Oct 27, 2020)

the days of uni being for enlightenment died decades ago. More people need higher knowledge to boost the economy.


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## LeafStew (Oct 17, 2009)

Depending where you live University can be very expensive, if university are private and for profit then of course you are paying extra for the company to make a margin. Since school is expensive, you must be able to make more money than what it cost you to get your degree. It's viewed as an investment.

In Canada most University are public so the fees are pretty low. I got a degree in a field I wanted to work in and started working. But I kept studying part time. It's easier to study if you have money from a full time job, it's just it's a bit longer since you are studying part time instead of full time. Right now I'm doing a master in a field I work in but later I plan to take certificates (or minors) to learn other languages.


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## letsrunlikecrazy (Sep 21, 2015)

It seems like universities are going through an identity crisis. Back when they were rich boys' clubs, one of their primary roles was to expand and shape minds because they were educating the future ruling elite. As they became more generally accessible they became more invested in job training. Now there is confusion because some people romantically expect to have their minds blown and be inspired and others just want a decent-paying job at the end.


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## Electra (Oct 24, 2014)

In Norway unis are free. But you need good grades


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## Perlanthesis (Oct 30, 2020)

Electra said:


> In Norway unis are free. But you need good grades


Lucky!

I do admire some other country's education systems like Norway and Japan. On the other hand the U.S. curriculum doesn't seem as stressful and rigorous as asian countries depending on certain conditions. It just seems like the U.S. just found a single formula (education style) for saltine crackers and years later we're still being fed the same stale and dry cracker without questioning it because we're so used to it. Of course, I dont claim to know everything about the state of the U.S. education system so...


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## Flabarac Brupip (May 9, 2020)

Educations turn some people smug and somewhat delusional about how much they really know. For example, I had a mental health case worker tell me that he thought he knew me better than I knew myself because he had an education.


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## The red spirit (Sep 29, 2015)

Perlanthesis said:


> Lucky!
> 
> I do admire some other country's education systems like Norway and Japan.


I think that in Europe free education is common. If I'm not mistaking then EU members have it free. It's most likely due to how society is. Pretty much any job requires at least bachelor's, only some manual labor jobs are available for you if you don't have anything past high school. But you really shouldn't mix up Japan with this system, their system is totally different and has it's own problems like this:








Japanese University Student Don’t Study


Japanese University Student Don’t Study. Are you…




tbwrbcn11129.wordpress.com












Are Japanese People Retarded? - Japanese Rule of 7


Are Japanese speakers at a disadvantage because their language is so complex? It's not fair to say Japanese people are retarded. But then, life's not fair.



japaneseruleof7.com





(Why does shit like that fly in Japan? Japan had economic boom and had massive increase in population and demand of skilled labour, so naturally more universities were built. It was all nice and dandy until Japan entered long economic stagnation, big birth decline. So some universities have less students than before and Japan has many private unis. Due to recession there are less students and as result universities are financially forced to keep idiots like that, else they go bankrupt and workplaces are lost. Due to hyper competitive job market in Japan it's extremely hard to find a job at older age, so if uni goes bankrupt, many workers will be doomed. I suspect that public unis aren't as affected by this, it's mostly private unis, but I can't say that for sure as I never been there.)


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