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Smart people will tend to succeed whether they went to university (or college, as you call it in the USA) or not. Those people who are smart and motivated enou

Smart people will tend to succeed whether they went to university (or college, as you call it in the USA) or not. Those people who are smart and motivated enough to want to have an academic career will do so. I don't think they will care that less smart people also get an "A" on their tests. They will go on to study for more advanced degrees while the people who had to hustle for their grades go off to work in a convenience store or whatever. The real problem is that people who are not smart enough to be studying for a degree even end up there in the first place. In the UK it hasn't really cost much historically to spend three years getting a degree. (This is all about to change, with fees rising to £9000 soon - still very cheap compared to the USA.) Many young people here in the UK have felt that it would be crazy not to go and study a very easy degree subject for three years. It's a license to party, with free bank loans attached as standard. I can't help thinking that attending a university is more of a rite of passage than a genuine learning experience for most people these days. The tragedy is that these degrees are unlikely to make people more employable. It would make more objective sense to start full-time work three years earlier. (It's late and I'm tired - apologies if the above resembles a list of bullet points rather than an argument.)

eftpotrm 16y ago
Absolutely agree. I'm fed up with seeing a whole swathe of 'degree' coures in what many years ago would have been a work-based apprenticeship. Hospitality and event organising, outdoor activities leadership and so on. And does the world really need quite so many qualified psychology graduates? Or, for that matter, English Literature? Why, exactly, are we paying for these courses? I was doing some grocery shopping a few months back. The young guy at the tills was talking about saving up to go and do something-or-other with his University friends. Three years of expensive education and a large debt, and he's landed in a job you can get at 16 if you can nearly count. That said, I was already rapidly concluding that degrees were of questionable value even before the recent fee change (not exactly a tripling of the financial burden because of the very different repayment model and possibility for writeoffs, but still...). I'm still not at all convinced that there is value added to your career prospects by delaying employment by 3 years and accruing a rough year's gross salary debt. I don't doubt it makes the first job easier to get at 21 than it would be by 18 but I've seen no evidence it makes a substantial difference by 25. If you want to go to Univeristy, do it and enjoy it. But for a whole swathe of jobs it's a long way from the meal ticket that it's painted as being.

eftpotrm 16y ago

Absolutely agree. I'm fed up with seeing a whole swathe of 'degree' coures in what many years ago would have been a work-based apprenticeship. Hospitality and event organising, outdoor activities leadership and so on. And does the world really need quite so many qualified psychology graduates? Or, for that matter, English Literature? Why, exactly, are we paying for these courses? I was doing some grocery shopping a few months back. The young guy at the tills was talking about saving up to go and do something-or-other with his University friends. Three years of expensive education and a large debt, and he's landed in a job you can get at 16 if you can nearly count. That said, I was already rapidly concluding that degrees were of questionable value even before the recent fee change (not exactly a tripling of the financial burden because of the very different repayment model and possibility for writeoffs, but still...). I'm still not at all convinced that there is value added to your career prospects by delaying employment by 3 years and accruing a rough year's gross salary debt. I don't doubt it makes the first job easier to get at 21 than it would be by 18 but I've seen no evidence it makes a substantial difference by 25. If you want to go to Univeristy, do it and enjoy it. But for a whole swathe of jobs it's a long way from the meal ticket that it's painted as being.