> what Australia does now: a government who has treated the number of students in university as some kind of target I am beginning to see the first real result

> what Australia does now: a government who has treated the number of students in university as some kind of target I am beginning to see the first real results of these policies amongst that group of my friends who did not do technical degrees or have some other skill. The people who did "International Studies" or "International Politics" or any of a whole range of cool-sounding but, when it comes down to it, basically useless qualifications. None of them can get any sort of job commensurate with the headed-straight-for-the-UN promise of the degree title; at best they can hope for a public service bureaucrat job. More than one are teaching themselves programming after observing myself and others rocketing up on trajectories unthinkable in the arts degree world. Disillusionment doesn't really begin to cover it. The realisation that a great number of degrees are, if not useless, then at least impractical has not yet seemed to make it back to the year 12 students doing the choosing - but the secret certainly seems to be getting out, in some demographics at least.