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As in most countries in Europe, the value of a university degree is diminishing because the vast majority of population has it. If back in the day,it used to be

As in most countries in Europe, the value of a university degree is diminishing because the vast majority of population has it. If back in the day,it used to be 10-20% tops, now in some countries it's as high as 60-80%, while at the same time competing for jobs that often don't require such education to start with. [Edit] I still remember how not so long time ago it wasn't uncommon to have masters as a bare minimum when hiring a secretary in my country...

kingsuper20 5y ago
Perhaps the point was never to educate, but to differentiate. Peeling off the top 10% has it's own value.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  The optimal university contains only an admissions office.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    And a big bank account for deposits. When you want to hire someone that can show off their $100k+ proof-of-burn, you probably need to pay them well. They’ve demonstrated that being paid in peanuts won’t cut it. They mean business.
  - Jcowell 5y ago
    Who manages departmental needs for majors that require equipment (STEM) and audits the expenses? Who hires and does a Background check of these auditors and admission officials and professors?
- Pet_Ant 5y ago
  I have often felt this. The skills learned are of little direct value, but the qualification is signalling enough. I mean how much different for a middle management position is I got accepted to Harvard and I graduated from Harvard.
- ergot_vacation 5y ago
  "The Case Against Education" by Bryan Caplan lays out exactly this argument: "Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to certify their intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity—attributes that are valued by employers. He ultimately estimates that approximately 80% of individuals' return to education is the result of signaling, with the remainder due to human capital accumulation."
mschuster91 5y ago
> If back in the day,it used to be 10-20% tops, now in some countries it's as high as 60-80%, while at the same time competing for jobs that often don't require such education to start with. The change is because employers love degrees... they prove that a job applicant can reliably get out of bed and do quality work in a timely fashion (and thus reduce the risk for the employer to hire someone who turns out to be a "bad fit", have mental health issues etc.), and especially the IT degrees have a large part of knowledge transfer and training in them that the employer doesn't have to pay for like in a classic apprenticeship. Academia should be a place for science and those interested in advancing it, not for employers to save costs on vetting and training (by placing the burden on the government and/or the students)!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- prestigious 5y ago
  I don’t know about that… most liberal art degrees now are a signal that the person has severe mental health issues, will make themselves a bad fit, and generally be a pain in the ass.
- phillc73 5y ago
  > Academia should be a place for science and those interested in advancing it Any place in it for the Arts?
holoduke 5y ago
Which is a good thing. More high educated people is better. Back in the days only a handful of people with the right background were able to study. Yes it might diminish the value of a degree. Now actual additional skills and experience are needed to stand out. I am totally fine with this. Gone are the days of arrogant students thinking their degree is automatically bring them wealth (ok not entirely true in lots of countries). But still. We are heading into the right (not always perfect) direction.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  It's a catastrophe. Academics have always grossly oversold their own importance and the "value" of what they teach. The most valuable education is at the primary level (0 to 10 years old); then secondary (to 18); and tertiary education hardly has any effect whatsoever. By the point you're an adult, you aren't being "moulded" into anything, you're merely acquiring particular useful bits of knowledge that only have value if you're going to use them. What we have now is people spending tens of thousands to avoid earning money for several years; and thereby avoiding acquiring useful skills. And this is an economic catastrophe which burdens everyone in society and grossly misdirects public funds. I would be very supportive of an 12mo "generic higher learning skills" programmes being deployed at this scale. ie., something closer to a teenager-to-gradscheme transition programme which could include higher-level generic maths, writing, humanities, etc. skills. However what we have now is a gigantic tulip-style bubble that needs bursting or else we will continue to needlessly in-debt the next generations of people. The emperor really has no clothes on: your* degree really was a waste of money.... (* perhaps less so for HN readers )
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    Now we've got "Invest in students" programs that amount to indentures: how long before those are "a success from private finance we must make public for the children" and worse? When do our societies ever look at the silly shit they're into and say "this shit is silly, let's stop it"? The Civil Rights movement maybe... Usually tho it comes to doubling down on the silly until something else breaks.
  - 5y ago
chalst 5y ago
Both much of the Eurozone and the UK have particularly poor situations for young graduates because of the economically contractive way both handled the last financial crisis. The UK has compounded the situation by increasing debt for students, structured student load repayment so that payments kick in at an income threshold, and then embarked on the Brexit adventure. It's a mistake to look at the supply of graduates without looking at the changes in the graduate labour market.
bobtail3 5y ago
I think you make a good point, but your numbers seem way off. What countries are you aware of that even get close to 60-80% of completed college education? The list below shows the highest at 61% for Canada (between the ages of 35-44) [1]. But that list is also including things like community college, trade schools, and other forms of professional development. It seems to me that a much more accurate range is something like 25-40% for most developed countries. I think what is really going on with degrees being a poor investment, is that most degrees don't actually teach valuable skills or they do and the students just don't actually put in the necessary work to achieve those skills. Instead treating it as a game of how to pass while putting in as little work as possible. That was at least my experience TAing computer science courses. Most students were just not mature enough to value the education that was being offered. EDIT: A more generous interpretation to the students would be that they were simply jaded after a lack luster and uninspiring high school education plus a similar experience in probably many of the college classes they were taking. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...
- uncomputation 5y ago
  > students just don't actually put in the necessary work to achieve those skills While obviously this does happen, I think degrees do teach valuable skills and many students put in obscene levels of work to learn the material, resulting in ever-increasing competition for basically every facet of the job market - from university admissions all the way through job interviews. To me the issue isn’t students not understanding the true value of their education (and who could blame them? How is a 20 year old to know why their professor planned things out the way he did or why they are not learning Python as the blogosphere insists?). The real issue is that - like the article said - the benefits of this extra work seem marginal. Either way you will be competing against hundreds for entry level software development jobs with the greatest discriminator being referrals and prior industry experience. Whether you put in 8 extra hours a week to truly understand Dijkstra doesn’t get you much in the way of an interview.
- cosmodisk 5y ago
  Yes, you are correct, I was quite far off with the numbers,not quite sure why I thought it was so high.
roel_v 5y ago
Nonsense. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Share_of_the_population_by_educational_attainment_level_and_selected_age_groups,_2019_(%25).png https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... : 34% of the EU population 25-54 years old has completed education to ISCED levels 5-8, and level 5 isn't even university (depends on what you call 'university', but an academic bachelor's is level 6.)
- roel_v 5y ago
  Additionally, in my (relatively) highly educated country (The Netherlands), selection for university starts in primary school, where about 20% is assigned ('given the advice of going to') to the type of secundary education that prepares students for university. So I think it's fair to estimate that a university education for 20% of the population is realistic, and I have no reason to believe this would be significantly (10 percent points higher or lower) elsewhere in the Union.

kingsuper20 5y ago

Perhaps the point was never to educate, but to differentiate. Peeling off the top 10% has it's own value.

HPsquared 5y ago
The optimal university contains only an admissions office.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  And a big bank account for deposits. When you want to hire someone that can show off their $100k+ proof-of-burn, you probably need to pay them well. They’ve demonstrated that being paid in peanuts won’t cut it. They mean business.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  Who manages departmental needs for majors that require equipment (STEM) and audits the expenses? Who hires and does a Background check of these auditors and admission officials and professors?
Pet_Ant 5y ago
I have often felt this. The skills learned are of little direct value, but the qualification is signalling enough. I mean how much different for a middle management position is I got accepted to Harvard and I graduated from Harvard.
ergot_vacation 5y ago
"The Case Against Education" by Bryan Caplan lays out exactly this argument: "Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to certify their intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity—attributes that are valued by employers. He ultimately estimates that approximately 80% of individuals' return to education is the result of signaling, with the remainder due to human capital accumulation."

mschuster91 5y ago

> If back in the day,it used to be 10-20% tops, now in some countries it's as high as 60-80%, while at the same time competing for jobs that often don't require such education to start with. The change is because employers love degrees... they prove that a job applicant can reliably get out of bed and do quality work in a timely fashion (and thus reduce the risk for the employer to hire someone who turns out to be a "bad fit", have mental health issues etc.), and especially the IT degrees have a large part of knowledge transfer and training in them that the employer doesn't have to pay for like in a classic apprenticeship. Academia should be a place for science and those interested in advancing it, not for employers to save costs on vetting and training (by placing the burden on the government and/or the students)!

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
prestigious 5y ago
I don’t know about that… most liberal art degrees now are a signal that the person has severe mental health issues, will make themselves a bad fit, and generally be a pain in the ass.
phillc73 5y ago
> Academia should be a place for science and those interested in advancing it Any place in it for the Arts?

holoduke 5y ago

Which is a good thing. More high educated people is better. Back in the days only a handful of people with the right background were able to study. Yes it might diminish the value of a degree. Now actual additional skills and experience are needed to stand out. I am totally fine with this. Gone are the days of arrogant students thinking their degree is automatically bring them wealth (ok not entirely true in lots of countries). But still. We are heading into the right (not always perfect) direction.

mjburgess 5y ago
It's a catastrophe. Academics have always grossly oversold their own importance and the "value" of what they teach. The most valuable education is at the primary level (0 to 10 years old); then secondary (to 18); and tertiary education hardly has any effect whatsoever. By the point you're an adult, you aren't being "moulded" into anything, you're merely acquiring particular useful bits of knowledge that only have value if you're going to use them. What we have now is people spending tens of thousands to avoid earning money for several years; and thereby avoiding acquiring useful skills. And this is an economic catastrophe which burdens everyone in society and grossly misdirects public funds. I would be very supportive of an 12mo "generic higher learning skills" programmes being deployed at this scale. ie., something closer to a teenager-to-gradscheme transition programme which could include higher-level generic maths, writing, humanities, etc. skills. However what we have now is a gigantic tulip-style bubble that needs bursting or else we will continue to needlessly in-debt the next generations of people. The emperor really has no clothes on: your* degree really was a waste of money.... (* perhaps less so for HN readers )
- h2odragon 5y ago
  Now we've got "Invest in students" programs that amount to indentures: how long before those are "a success from private finance we must make public for the children" and worse? When do our societies ever look at the silly shit they're into and say "this shit is silly, let's stop it"? The Civil Rights movement maybe... Usually tho it comes to doubling down on the silly until something else breaks.
- 5y ago

chalst 5y ago

Both much of the Eurozone and the UK have particularly poor situations for young graduates because of the economically contractive way both handled the last financial crisis. The UK has compounded the situation by increasing debt for students, structured student load repayment so that payments kick in at an income threshold, and then embarked on the Brexit adventure. It's a mistake to look at the supply of graduates without looking at the changes in the graduate labour market.

bobtail3 5y ago

I think you make a good point, but your numbers seem way off. What countries are you aware of that even get close to 60-80% of completed college education? The list below shows the highest at 61% for Canada (between the ages of 35-44) [1]. But that list is also including things like community college, trade schools, and other forms of professional development. It seems to me that a much more accurate range is something like 25-40% for most developed countries. I think what is really going on with degrees being a poor investment, is that most degrees don't actually teach valuable skills or they do and the students just don't actually put in the necessary work to achieve those skills. Instead treating it as a game of how to pass while putting in as little work as possible. That was at least my experience TAing computer science courses. Most students were just not mature enough to value the education that was being offered. EDIT: A more generous interpretation to the students would be that they were simply jaded after a lack luster and uninspiring high school education plus a similar experience in probably many of the college classes they were taking. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...

uncomputation 5y ago
> students just don't actually put in the necessary work to achieve those skills While obviously this does happen, I think degrees do teach valuable skills and many students put in obscene levels of work to learn the material, resulting in ever-increasing competition for basically every facet of the job market - from university admissions all the way through job interviews. To me the issue isn’t students not understanding the true value of their education (and who could blame them? How is a 20 year old to know why their professor planned things out the way he did or why they are not learning Python as the blogosphere insists?). The real issue is that - like the article said - the benefits of this extra work seem marginal. Either way you will be competing against hundreds for entry level software development jobs with the greatest discriminator being referrals and prior industry experience. Whether you put in 8 extra hours a week to truly understand Dijkstra doesn’t get you much in the way of an interview.
cosmodisk 5y ago
Yes, you are correct, I was quite far off with the numbers,not quite sure why I thought it was so high.

roel_v 5y ago

Nonsense. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Share_of_the_population_by_educational_attainment_level_and_selected_age_groups,_2019_(%25).png https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... : 34% of the EU population 25-54 years old has completed education to ISCED levels 5-8, and level 5 isn't even university (depends on what you call 'university', but an academic bachelor's is level 6.)

roel_v 5y ago
Additionally, in my (relatively) highly educated country (The Netherlands), selection for university starts in primary school, where about 20% is assigned ('given the advice of going to') to the type of secundary education that prepares students for university. So I think it's fair to estimate that a university education for 20% of the population is realistic, and I have no reason to believe this would be significantly (10 percent points higher or lower) elsewhere in the Union.