3 ms·

I think this essay is missing a discussion on the theories of what make university graduates better paid. The two main theories are: 1. Human capital. People l

by wisty 7y ago

I think this essay is missing a discussion on the theories of what make university graduates better paid. The two main theories are: 1. Human capital. People learn stuff at university which makes them more valuable workers. 2. Credentialism. Universities select (or pass) people who were already going to be valuable. Now let's look at what we might mean by "valuable": 1. You can fool hiring managers into thinking you're competent - good resume writing skills, good interview skills, an impressive certificate. 2. You can fool your manger's manager into thinking you're competent. All the above, plus you're good at churning out superficially credible explanations and justifications. Some critics of university might argue that they've optimised towards teaching students how to fake competence - 4 years of general education isn't enough to produce a truly competent thinker in a field (not reliably for a large fraction of society) but it is enough to teach them to write a clean-looking essay with proper citations, and to churn out paragraphs with "topic sentence, evidence, analysis, transition" (but not enough time that this will get too stale - you'll still be able to grade the students from A-E). 3. You'll actually be good for your company / society because of your ability to analyze things, domain skills, intelligence, conscientiousness, etc. We could also talk about general vs domain specific skills, but they're often fairly well correlated. Competence in a domain requires thinking skills, and thinking skills are best built up in some real domain where skills can actually be tested (not just abstract "critical thinking" courses).

rossdavidh 7y ago
One other possibility to consider: college degrees are considered a way of making sure the person is from the social class that you feel comfortable being in the room with. It's a (usually) legally defensible requirement that enables class prejudice.
mar77i 7y ago
To an employer, this seems kind of missing the point: you spent your time at college. Did you do real work yet?
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  As someone who's about to graduate with an MEng degree: No, I haven't done real work yet, and I hope that most employers don't share this attitude which gets me in a catch-22. I need to have worked to find work, but to work I need to have found work. The only option seems to be these "graduate jobs", a large percentage of which demand arcane tests modelled after IQ tests and tedious timed calculator tests in order to even consider me. Graduated with 70%+ with the title "Master of Engineering"? Not good enough, do an IQ test to get the job. Write a compiler for a self-designed embedded language for your final project? Not good enough, you forgot how to concatenate lists in MATLAB. Oh, and you don't get to find out your prospective salary until you have an offer; until then, you'll be happy to know it's "competitive", whatever that means. At this point, I'm not sure if I'd recommend anyone go to university unless they want to stay in academia or something. I'm not convinced it's worth the hassle if this kind of job search is the end result, and if you're going there for knowledge, you're better off not getting yourself into debt with a 4% interest rate.
  - swiley 7y ago
    Who is recommending university for knowledge (at least in STEM?) If knowledge is all you want you’re far better off going to Wikipedia, libgen, sci hub or even buying the books. Heck if you really need lectures for the classes (or from researchers even!) you can legally watch them for free on YouTube! University helps shape you socially and drag you through some cultural stuff that a lot of people would otherwise ignore, that’s about it.
randomdata 7y ago
You forgot the most obvious one: 3. Those who are more able in the workplace also have improved chances of completing higher levels of schooling thanks to their ability (or lack of disability). I believe this one is validated by the fact that even as more and more people attain a university education, incomes have held stagnant.

by wisty 7y ago

rossdavidh 7y ago

One other possibility to consider: college degrees are considered a way of making sure the person is from the social class that you feel comfortable being in the room with. It's a (usually) legally defensible requirement that enables class prejudice.

mar77i 7y ago

To an employer, this seems kind of missing the point: you spent your time at college. Did you do real work yet?

claudiawerner 7y ago
As someone who's about to graduate with an MEng degree: No, I haven't done real work yet, and I hope that most employers don't share this attitude which gets me in a catch-22. I need to have worked to find work, but to work I need to have found work. The only option seems to be these "graduate jobs", a large percentage of which demand arcane tests modelled after IQ tests and tedious timed calculator tests in order to even consider me. Graduated with 70%+ with the title "Master of Engineering"? Not good enough, do an IQ test to get the job. Write a compiler for a self-designed embedded language for your final project? Not good enough, you forgot how to concatenate lists in MATLAB. Oh, and you don't get to find out your prospective salary until you have an offer; until then, you'll be happy to know it's "competitive", whatever that means. At this point, I'm not sure if I'd recommend anyone go to university unless they want to stay in academia or something. I'm not convinced it's worth the hassle if this kind of job search is the end result, and if you're going there for knowledge, you're better off not getting yourself into debt with a 4% interest rate.
- swiley 7y ago
  Who is recommending university for knowledge (at least in STEM?) If knowledge is all you want you’re far better off going to Wikipedia, libgen, sci hub or even buying the books. Heck if you really need lectures for the classes (or from researchers even!) you can legally watch them for free on YouTube! University helps shape you socially and drag you through some cultural stuff that a lot of people would otherwise ignore, that’s about it.

randomdata 7y ago

You forgot the most obvious one: 3. Those who are more able in the workplace also have improved chances of completing higher levels of schooling thanks to their ability (or lack of disability). I believe this one is validated by the fact that even as more and more people attain a university education, incomes have held stagnant.