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> Most jobs that do require higher education don't actually make any use of the higher education. This is a serious misunderstanding of what education is or is

> Most jobs that do require higher education don't actually make any use of the higher education. This is a serious misunderstanding of what education is or is for. Higher education doesn't exist to provide a skill. That is what trade schools are for. I know this is largely disagreeable for many people on here who learned to program in a university CS program. Higher education exists to provide the educational background necessary to function in a professional, often corporate, setting. This means things like communications skills, following complex directions, and problem solving. It is a difference between a job of solving for implied tasks versus a job where everything is a directed task and nothing more is expected.

gilgoomesh 9y ago
I know that's what everyone claims but it's an insidious trope that encourages people to trust in a system that lacks measurable benefit. "Don't worry that you'll never use this information. Trust us: we've prepared you in nebulous ways that can't be measured or critiqued."
- mulmen 9y ago
  I was continually measured and critiqued in college. It was called grading.
  - randomdata 9y ago
    He is referring to measuring you in your time after college to see how what you gained from the experience has actually shaped your life, and if it matches what was expected from the onset. But given that you don't have a perfect clone that is in every way equal except for having gone to college, it is understandably difficult to measure. It seems, at best, we have people trying to compare the worlds best prodigies with people who suffer from severe disabilities that prevent them from going to college and conclude that because the prodigies breezed through college that college is the reason for them being more successful people, but that is obviously a horribly flawed methodology.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      The populations of both people who go to college and those who do not are so large that I feel like we could likely control for effects (at least extreme ones like you're talking about) and make useful judgments.
      - randomdata 9y ago
        While I only pointed to the extremes, even across the general population the problem with trying to compare is that college is setup to filter those who are less able. Be that less able to pay, less able to withstand the academic rigour, less able to take risk, less able to integrate in certain social settings, etc. As a result, only the top (for some definition of top) people are able to enter and finish their academic programs. It's kind of like looking at the Olympics to see how it has shaped the athletic ability of the athletes compared to the ability of the population who have never been to the Olympics. You are bound to find outliers[1], but observing that Olympic athletes are usually stronger athletes might leave you to believe that going to the Olympics makes one a significantly better athlete. However, in reality, those same people would still be among the best athletes even if they never went anywhere near the Olympics. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/winter-olympics/winter-olympics-2018-pyeongchang-elizabeth-swaney-ski-halfpipe-video-average-a8218991.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/winter-olympics/...
        emodendroket 9y ago
        Olympic athletes are a tiny population and there is no program, for instance, to let mediocre athletes in, while there are programs to let economically disadvantaged students into college. I think it should be quite possible to control for those effects.
        randomdata 9y ago
        > there are programs to let economically disadvantaged students into college. But, to stick with the comparison, many countries have programs to help out athletes who are economically disadvantaged as well to allow them to make it to the Olympics, assuming they already have demonstrated sufficient athletic ability to justify the funding. Just as sufficient academic ability is required for any college subsidy I have ever come across. Although I'm not sure ability to pay ends at economic disadvantage. I don't feel that I can pay for college at this point in my life, with many preexisting financial commitments that need to come first, and I have a developer's salary. Nobody is going to pay my way. Not being poor doesn't mean money is readily available for such luxuries. There is a very real opportunity cost there. What about academically disadvantaged students? Are there any studies to show how people who couldn't possibly graduate from college if they tried to the best of their ability fair by being given access to the entire course load and awarded a degree even with their technical failure? That would be very interesting and a way to start to control the variables.
- austincheney 9y ago
  The benefit is articulation and the ability to create and respond to initiative. The measurable benefit is the strategic success of a person's later career. Another way to think about it is whether you need to be told explicitly what you do for a job or whether you are given a field of problems to solve for (implied tasks). One of those is far more limited in risk and potential while the other is far more benefited by higher education.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I think what's truly insidious is this idea that anything other than narrow vocational education is useless because you will "never use" it.
jjeaff 9y ago
>necessary to function in a professional, often corporate, setting. This means things like communications skills, following complex directions, and problem solving I wonder if just working in a corporate setting and learning these skills as an intern or junior employee might be far more effective.
- tr0ut 9y ago
  I believe so. Besides all the intangibles "Tastes great less filling" etc.. I still believe college/uni prepares you to work. Sorry this is an unpopular belief. Certainly we can debate the original inception and intentions of university all the way back to Greeks pontificating too. I digress.. If it did not. Employment would not require it. Because as most have stated above. It was not about preparing for the workforce. It was for all these other reasons, or the theory of the subject. Why would we want a MS if all they did is meet people and learn how to cook a meal for themselves because they're no longer under their parents thumb? I would say not too far into ones career. Education matters very little. As in diminishing returns. The best you'll get after attending 'University of X' 5-10 years into your career. Is a high-five because the hiring manager went there too. Not because you're so much better off because you had a class on .Net and Network fundamentals. This is mostly true in all but the very specialized jobs in Tech. For the specialized few that went to top universities.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    > If it did not. Employment would not require it. That's not so clear. Other theories I've heard include "college is a good proxy for being reasonably intelligent and able to complete a difficult task" (mostly from employers themselves) and the more cynical "college education is a class signifier." I personally would say that college is worthwhile, from a purely work perspective, because it provides the student with the tools to encounter a new problem or concept, learn about it, and teach himself how to solve it, but that there's something to the other two explanations I mentioned too. My Japanese degree taught me nothing about programming, but the experience of learning Japanese in a university was useful when I decided I wanted to learn how to program. Of course there are exceptions (if you're a doctor your higher education materials were obviously directly relevant), but to me this helps explain why so many employers care about a college degree, and not necessarily a degree in a particular subject. > Not because you're so much better off because you had a class on .Net and Network fundamentals. A computer science program that has courses devoted to stuff like .NET frankly doesn't sound like a very good one, since the idea of learning comp-sci is to understand underlying principles rather than memorizing how to use a particular tool.
forapurpose 9y ago
> Higher education exists to provide the educational background necessary to function in a professional To function as a person, a parent, a community member, a citizen, a consumer, a producer ...

gilgoomesh 9y ago

I know that's what everyone claims but it's an insidious trope that encourages people to trust in a system that lacks measurable benefit. "Don't worry that you'll never use this information. Trust us: we've prepared you in nebulous ways that can't be measured or critiqued."

mulmen 9y ago
I was continually measured and critiqued in college. It was called grading.
- randomdata 9y ago
  He is referring to measuring you in your time after college to see how what you gained from the experience has actually shaped your life, and if it matches what was expected from the onset. But given that you don't have a perfect clone that is in every way equal except for having gone to college, it is understandably difficult to measure. It seems, at best, we have people trying to compare the worlds best prodigies with people who suffer from severe disabilities that prevent them from going to college and conclude that because the prodigies breezed through college that college is the reason for them being more successful people, but that is obviously a horribly flawed methodology.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    The populations of both people who go to college and those who do not are so large that I feel like we could likely control for effects (at least extreme ones like you're talking about) and make useful judgments.
    - randomdata 9y ago
      While I only pointed to the extremes, even across the general population the problem with trying to compare is that college is setup to filter those who are less able. Be that less able to pay, less able to withstand the academic rigour, less able to take risk, less able to integrate in certain social settings, etc. As a result, only the top (for some definition of top) people are able to enter and finish their academic programs. It's kind of like looking at the Olympics to see how it has shaped the athletic ability of the athletes compared to the ability of the population who have never been to the Olympics. You are bound to find outliers[1], but observing that Olympic athletes are usually stronger athletes might leave you to believe that going to the Olympics makes one a significantly better athlete. However, in reality, those same people would still be among the best athletes even if they never went anywhere near the Olympics. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/winter-olympics/winter-olympics-2018-pyeongchang-elizabeth-swaney-ski-halfpipe-video-average-a8218991.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/winter-olympics/...
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Olympic athletes are a tiny population and there is no program, for instance, to let mediocre athletes in, while there are programs to let economically disadvantaged students into college. I think it should be quite possible to control for those effects.
        randomdata 9y ago
        > there are programs to let economically disadvantaged students into college. But, to stick with the comparison, many countries have programs to help out athletes who are economically disadvantaged as well to allow them to make it to the Olympics, assuming they already have demonstrated sufficient athletic ability to justify the funding. Just as sufficient academic ability is required for any college subsidy I have ever come across. Although I'm not sure ability to pay ends at economic disadvantage. I don't feel that I can pay for college at this point in my life, with many preexisting financial commitments that need to come first, and I have a developer's salary. Nobody is going to pay my way. Not being poor doesn't mean money is readily available for such luxuries. There is a very real opportunity cost there. What about academically disadvantaged students? Are there any studies to show how people who couldn't possibly graduate from college if they tried to the best of their ability fair by being given access to the entire course load and awarded a degree even with their technical failure? That would be very interesting and a way to start to control the variables.
austincheney 9y ago
The benefit is articulation and the ability to create and respond to initiative. The measurable benefit is the strategic success of a person's later career. Another way to think about it is whether you need to be told explicitly what you do for a job or whether you are given a field of problems to solve for (implied tasks). One of those is far more limited in risk and potential while the other is far more benefited by higher education.
emodendroket 9y ago
I think what's truly insidious is this idea that anything other than narrow vocational education is useless because you will "never use" it.

jjeaff 9y ago

>necessary to function in a professional, often corporate, setting. This means things like communications skills, following complex directions, and problem solving I wonder if just working in a corporate setting and learning these skills as an intern or junior employee might be far more effective.

tr0ut 9y ago
I believe so. Besides all the intangibles "Tastes great less filling" etc.. I still believe college/uni prepares you to work. Sorry this is an unpopular belief. Certainly we can debate the original inception and intentions of university all the way back to Greeks pontificating too. I digress.. If it did not. Employment would not require it. Because as most have stated above. It was not about preparing for the workforce. It was for all these other reasons, or the theory of the subject. Why would we want a MS if all they did is meet people and learn how to cook a meal for themselves because they're no longer under their parents thumb? I would say not too far into ones career. Education matters very little. As in diminishing returns. The best you'll get after attending 'University of X' 5-10 years into your career. Is a high-five because the hiring manager went there too. Not because you're so much better off because you had a class on .Net and Network fundamentals. This is mostly true in all but the very specialized jobs in Tech. For the specialized few that went to top universities.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  > If it did not. Employment would not require it. That's not so clear. Other theories I've heard include "college is a good proxy for being reasonably intelligent and able to complete a difficult task" (mostly from employers themselves) and the more cynical "college education is a class signifier." I personally would say that college is worthwhile, from a purely work perspective, because it provides the student with the tools to encounter a new problem or concept, learn about it, and teach himself how to solve it, but that there's something to the other two explanations I mentioned too. My Japanese degree taught me nothing about programming, but the experience of learning Japanese in a university was useful when I decided I wanted to learn how to program. Of course there are exceptions (if you're a doctor your higher education materials were obviously directly relevant), but to me this helps explain why so many employers care about a college degree, and not necessarily a degree in a particular subject. > Not because you're so much better off because you had a class on .Net and Network fundamentals. A computer science program that has courses devoted to stuff like .NET frankly doesn't sound like a very good one, since the idea of learning comp-sci is to understand underlying principles rather than memorizing how to use a particular tool.

forapurpose 9y ago

> Higher education exists to provide the educational background necessary to function in a professional To function as a person, a parent, a community member, a citizen, a consumer, a producer ...