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China to cancel college majors that don't pay

142 points by BlackJack 15y ago

klbarry 15y ago
I would love if the United States modified and did this. Do the research on what majors pay and lead to what outcomes - and then shove those results in high school senior's faces often (instead of forcing the majors closed).
- unshift 15y ago
  why? college is not a job training facility and shouldn't be treated like one. high school's goal is to provide a broad education so a graduate can have the basic knowledge necessary to function in society. not everyone goes to college.
  - Scaevolus 15y ago
    In the US, people are encouraged to go to college so that they can get higher-paying jobs. It's seen as a job training facility.
    - tryitnow 15y ago
      This discussion reveals one of the problems with our system of higher education: for some people it's one thing, for others it's something else. Colleges are like companies that are trying to do two very different things at once: broad education and job training. In the world of startups we know what to do when that happens: Choose one direction and go with it, stop trying to be all things to all people. Blended business models rarely work. My guess is that something similar will eventually happen in education. Some institutions will specialize in getting you a paycheck and others will specialize in broader education. I view purely academic coursework in the same category as other luxury goods: it's something some people find fun and exciting and if they want to pay for it, so be it, but society should not foot the bill. Whereas practical "get a job" coursework I view as something that just about everybody needs and maybe there's a good argument for public subsidies or other policies that encourage it.
- ams6110 15y ago
  This sort of thing only leads to "bubbles" in certain fields, actually lowering the value of the degree and making it harder to find a job once you graduate.
- lojack 15y ago
  As if math and science isn't force fed enough. My business partner was accused of padding his grades in high school because he was good at art and wanted to take more art classes. Shoving this sort of stuff in high schoolers faces is exactly what kills the drive to learn. How many times do you remember that classmate in the back of the room saying something along the lines of, "Why am I learning this, I'll never use this in real life?" Did you ever think that maybe they were right? I don't know about you, but I'd rather see a country full of people struggling to do something they are passionate about than a country full of people successfully doing something that makes them miserable.
tryitnow 15y ago
I would like to see the US government stop subsidizing majors and colleges that don't get results for their graduates. Now there arises the problem of inadequate funding for the liberal arts majors. But as it is way too many people major in liberal arts and other impractical subjects. Lib arts should be a highly selective group, limited to scholarship recipients and any rich kid whose family has the money. Treating all majors the same really hurts kids who come from working class backgrounds and might not know how society really works. Rarely will you be rewarded for learning for learning's sake. Major in engineering, accounting, nursing, etc. Then your future is pretty solid. Let's stop kidding ourselves about how our society values education.
- rluhar 15y ago
  I don't think you can count Liberal arts as "impractical" subjects. They may not be "job oriented" but I believe having a foundation in the liberal arts does allow for perhaps a broader education than focusing on a very narrow (albeit deep) technical field from a young age. Maybe some people are better suited to be generalists as opposed to specialists? I don't think restricting a Liberal Arts education for "those who can pay" is a good idea. In Japan, some companies (especially in banking) hire people to work as generalists. They tend to rotate through a variety of roles as their career progresses. I don't think it is the most efficient allocation of resources, but it does make for employees who have a wider view of the business, and more importantly a network and contacts across a variety of fields. Like most people commenting here, I have a very specialized technical education (Comp Sci major), but I actually wonder if my education could have been a little broader. I learnt most of what I know at work anyway!!
  - abhimishra 15y ago
    Perhaps you aren't suggesting exactly this, but I don't understand the commonly-held view that those in technical majors don't have a 'broad education'. Most people I've known in technical majors have as broad an education as any liberal-arts major I know. I personally feel that even in the absence of breadth requirements (which at my university are non-trivial), most of my classmates would be as well-educated as they are now, simply because they have the ability to read and absorb information. Students who go to college and get a liberal-arts education often don't retain their major-specific knowledge once they move into the job market and into a role that has nothing to do with what they studied. What they are supposed to retain though, is learning- and critical-thinking skills that make them better at various jobs than someone who did not go to college at all. And that same learning- and critical-thinking ability is something technical majors also develop quite well - hence I don't see a liberal arts education as having a monopoly on developing 'generalists' or really providing any advantage in that regard. Naturally this is also a problem of efficient allocation. I think there is value in the knowledge produced by every field - however we require different levels of supply for different skills/knowledge - and I would further argue that this variation in demand for skills has always existed throughout human history. Since society is both funding education and creating this demand, it makes sense to me that we meet that demand partly by creating the correct supply of variously-educated citizens.
keiferski 15y ago
It doesn't get much more short-sighted than this. What happens in 20 years if engineers are everywhere and can't get work? Instead, let's make liberal arts degrees cheaper. There's no reason why a Philosophy or English degree needs to cost 15k+ a year. It's been said before, and it needs said again: a liberal arts education is just as valuable today as it was 300 years ago. The current problem is one of cost, not of value.
- dreamux 15y ago
  I think that's backwards. Make Science/Engineering cheaper and liberal arts more expensive... arts degrees should be considered luxury items: nice to have but not strictly necessary. I think many people would be better off not going to University than get an arts degree, whereas there is huge societal benefit to pushing out more scientists and engineers. Liberal arts should exist, just at a much smaller (frankly, more reasonable wrt actual demand) scale.
  - keiferski 15y ago
    If the objective is to maximize short-term economic gains, then yes, that would work. If the objective is to create well-rounded, cross-disciplinary citizens, then no, that is a horrible idea. Regardless, I think it's a false dichotomy. Why does one have to be expensive while the other is cheap? And why can't someone get both a liberal arts education and a "practical" education? I see no reason why a student can't pay 5k for a 2-3 year liberal arts degree, and then go on to (competitively-priced) a 2-3 year engineering degree.
    - anamax 15y ago
      > If the objective is to create well-rounded, cross-disciplinary citizens, then no, that is a horrible idea. How about some evidence that liberal arts graduates have anything to do with "well-rounded, cross-disciplinary citizens"? As someone noted above, STEM folk are far more cross-disciplinary than liberal arts grads.
      - 15y ago
ams6110 15y ago
From the piece: Chinese have questioned whether someone like Apple founder Steve Jobs could ever emerge from an education system that seeks to push down students who stand out from the crowd. Do they not realize Jobs was a dropout??
- wtvanhest 15y ago
  This is my favorite quote: "Many university professors in China are unhappy with the Ministry of Education’s move" The author goes on to make a weak argument about demand in distant future, but we all know which professors are upset, those that teach subjects which do not generate jobs for their students. (Most likely they are there teaching because they themselves couldn't get jobs in their field) *I realize that this is a harsh view, but it is worth mentioning even though it is a little extreme.
- rsanchez1 15y ago
  Sounds like they're looking for a system where the Steve Jobs' of the world have what they need in school to become successful. There are probably a lot of Steve Jobs' who do drop out, but going through years of college drained their enthusiasm.
  - CamperBob 15y ago
    What Jobs needed to become successful was to drop out, start a company, get kicked out of said company, hit bottom, and wander around in India for awhile. None of that requires a degree. Woz also lacked any sort of degree when he worked for HP and Apple. He only went back for his BSEE after he'd already made his mark.
Tsagadai 15y ago
Yeah, all those arts graduates filling prisons with dissidents. There are already calls in the comments for a similar system in other countries. Why should university be about getting a job? Shouldn't university be about learning, and being recognised for learning. A history major or a poetry degree may not be the best way to get a job but I would prefer to live in a society with poets and historians. Jobless, educated young people are copping a lot of flak from the media everywhere at the moment. They are a drain on the economy, "they are the 99%", they are having Arab springs where spring lasts all year, they are making molotovs in Greece. They are agents for changing society. The underlying current of this idea in education is that we should all be happy little workers. Universities have been commercialised away from being the places that brought about the Enlightenment to places for turning out more advanced labourers. Universities are becoming (some have already become) an extension of the standard school system. I found university to be a cacophony of ideas and viewpoints that until that point I had never really experienced. It introduced me to thoughts and ideas I may have never of experienced if I stayed in a small country town. Degree-mills rarely ever have this sort of environment and if all universities are reduced to churning out technical apprentices the world will be a worse place for it.
- GHFigs 15y ago
  The problem is not (e.g.) poets and historians, but that the supply of people-qualified-to-be-poets and people-qualified-to-be-historians exceeds the demand for them. (Full disclosure: I am a high school dropout, so I'm not qualified to do anything.)
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Agreed. I have a history degree, and program professionally. Universities are about expanding your mind, not turning into Good Employee.
  - ColdAsIce 15y ago
    Well hey there mate, I have a BA in History and program professionally too. JavaEE at work, and python on GNU/Linux all the way at home.
gtz65 15y ago
way too many people think that the only purpose of education is to earn money. It isn't. Education has intrinsic value.
- KevinEldon 15y ago
  Education's general value is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Once you have learned to critically study and learn a subject of your choosing the value of education is mostly related to the value of what you produce from what you've learned. A hermit who learns the secrets of the universe and doesn't share is of no real value. A history (or engineering) major who doesn't learn how to apply what they've studied is of little use. I think it's just generally easier for engineering majors, or business majors to apply what they've learned.
- randomdata 15y ago
  Agreed. Education is a hobby – and that is a good thing. Hobbies always are to the betterment of the person engaging in them. Hobbies can, and often do, lead to high paying jobs and careers. Hobbies lead you to meet all kinds of interesting people who will shape your future. Hobbies are, if nothing else, enjoyable. We just need to not lose sight of the fact that you should never bank your future on a hobby. Starting a band has made a lot of people incredibly wealthy, but that doesn't mean your band will find success. Do it because you love it, not because you want to be rich. There is nothing you can do to prepare yourself to be successful, else everyone would be.
- Jach 15y ago
  The problem is people complect education with college, most egregiously in the private sector with companies requiring BS/BA degrees to do any job (and reasonably above minimal wage). In the US, most education is free or nearly so, especially in the humanities, if you're willing to do it on your own. College on the other hand is obscenely expensive, both in opportunity costs as well as the actual loans and so on. In order to combat that expense, you should have "something to show for it" that's applicable in the job market when you're done. The purpose of college has become making money, via getting that piece of paper, social connections, etc. If you sign up for a liberal arts degree priced at $100k, you're doing a bad job at making money (and a pretty bad job at educating depending on where you go--even with Computer Science if you pick a bad school you could have learned everything and more in 1 year that the school took 4 years to teach you). Since you're doing a bad job, you should be mocked in the way a person whose goal is to profit in a yard sale and who ends up paying people to take stuff away, should be mocked.
jluan 15y ago
Market forces aren't good enough for them :P
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I am really glad the Chinese are doing this. Not because I think it is a good idea, it is an astonishingly bad idea, but because in doing it they will demonstrate just how bad an idea it is. I am very much a free market type person, I think anyone should be able to get any degree they want. And I think that people should understand that just any degree doesn't mean they will be employable after they graduate. But we do need folks who are passionate about lots of different things, and take those passions rigorously to the highest level. The Chinese may find that someone who would excel in Art History and who would have, had they been allowed to, enabled others to develop deeper insights into their culture by looking at the art that their culture has created, may be really crappy business majors, or science majors. And making it harder for businesses to discern between people who wanted to be in business and those who were 'forced' into it, also harder which will make those businesses less efficient at employing folks. I hope at that point everyone will look back and go "Gee that was a stupid idea." and we won't have to debate hypothetical 'what if' type arguments.
- Volpe 15y ago
  Why was the sibling comment from sinope [1] down voted to death, when it was highly relevant, and factually more correct than those around it. Seriously HN, do you want to share knowledge and discuss things, or filter out people with differing views? Edit: added link for clarity. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3276199 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3276199
  - 18pfsmt 15y ago
    FYI, that comment was not down-voted; the account is hell-banned.
- lpolovets 15y ago
  You bring up a good point, but this would also be a very painful way to prove that a stupid idea is stupid. Many people will suffer in order to make an obvious point even more obvious.
- JamesBlair 15y ago
  > And making it harder for businesses to discern between people who wanted to be in business and those who were 'forced' into it, also harder which will make those businesses less efficient at employing folks. It was my impression that Chinese students followed their parents ambitions. So I am not so sure that this effect will be all that noticeable. If I'm wrong here feel free to eviscerate me. As a side note: I upvoted you for bullet biting.
wavephorm 15y ago
I think more industries need to adopt the tradesmen style apprenticeship before allowing someone to pursue post-secondary education. They should also be forced to employ apprentices before being able to hire someone with a degree -- too many students exit university with no real-world experience or any idea what their work will be like once their degree is complete. If you really, really want to do a 3 year philosophy degree, I think should at least have to do a year as an apprentice philosopher.
markbao 15y ago
This is a little disheartening. It'll prevent people from expanding their mind in the subject area that they want, and instead, they're told that they should be studying sciences, engineering, business, or something else that'll be more "useful." Undoubtedly, I can see why China's doing it. It's utilitarian. College is already (wrongly) seen as "job training," and this will deepen that. But the number of jobs filled is one of many measures of "useful," and this threatens to make it the only one. Nobody can predict what will come of that. Telling people that they can only pursue a certain set of majors because they're useful, and if they don't like any of them, then too bad, seems a little nearsighted.
est 15y ago
As a native Chinese who graduated from a 211 & 985 college in China just few years ago, I think there are really some media manipulation going on here. It's not they are going to do this, the Ministry already started this rule in as early as 2004-12-10. The problem it trying to solve is that, there are too many low-level buzz-word fancy term majors created in Chinese universities, like "nanotech", "earth science", or "life science". These majors often only covers a superficial fraction of the subject, and allows quick rote learning only on some intro theory, then quickly issue a diploma. The hardcore part of knowledge is hard thus left to other traditional majors Why do Chinese have diploma greed? Because diploma is a hyper-inflation profitable industry in China. Nearly every bullshit job requires a BS degree, they employer just want to make the company staff looks "better educated" These "hot" majors are not really teaching any knowledge, but an easy way to grab a degree, so the students can gain their entry to various job titles. The college make lots of money by expanding cheap majors. But the students learns too few to start a serious career, so in a competitive job markets these students have much higher failure rate than similar harder majors. In fact, corrupted officials/businessman can order famous univ. to create a special, private major for themselves, their daughters and sons. They don't even have to spend full 4 year time school to get a very high degree. In addition, "new & new" majors" name is very similar to other authentic ones (aka ShanZhai majors) but requires a lot less effort to accomplish. So the Ministry started to ban major frauds, under the name of "low employment rate". Are they going to cancel or stop funding traditional liberal arts majors? I don't think they are really that stupid. Are there humanities majors effected by this rule? Sure.
- d_r 15y ago
  This does make much more sense compared to the assumption we immediately jump to ("eliminating liberal arts majors.") Actual facts aside, what is fascinating is how we arrive to this assumption. The article only mentions "unemployable graduates." Nowhere does it mention humanities or specific majors. It is then we, the readers, who apply our Western worldview and assume this means "humanities majors."
  - Tsagadai 15y ago
    For what it's worth, the article did end with a mention about humanities majors in the closing line, "psychology, U.S. history and military technologies". While not humanities, Military technologies is an easy one to work out why people are unemployed. There are few people employed in military industries who weren't in the military, hence difficulty finding work. So it is easy to see why comments are about humanities when the article's closing line singles humanities out. Thanks to the grandparent poster for the deeper insight.
teyc 15y ago
Someone should start a website to anonymously survey the following for US grads: 1. Years since graduation 2. Major 3. University 4. Employed/Unemployed in related field 5. GPA At least this way, there could be some basis in informed decision making by potential students.
- simonbrown 15y ago
  There is a WSJ table that lists data for majors, but not universities. http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/ http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/ There's a website listing more detailed data on UK grads. http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/ http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/
afterburner 15y ago
est's comment (which may be true) notwithstanding, this does not surprise me. China is a communist country of the Cold War mold, if not in all the particulars, then at least in some of its centralist, autocratic ways. Communist countries of this type have outright told people what they should study, to fill particular state needs. That there is freedom to choose in China is a sign of course that this is 2011, not 1970, but still... it makes this kind of thing not at all shocking.
_delirium 15y ago
I was going to try participating in this discussion, but instead I'm just going to say: Wow, as a computer scientist, most of the comments in these kinds of discussions leave me disheartened and embarrassed with the arrogance ("useless", etc.) of my fellow technical folks. A discussion about where to allocate graduates makes sense, but the kind of unjustifiably arrogant invective here doesn't. I think people might want to look at whether their house is made of glass a bit more as well, before denigrating "useless" historians and throwing around phrases like "contributes to the country's advancement". Is the webapp you're working on really a great contribution to society? Is Zynga producing value that will move our civilization forward?
PakG1 15y ago
I think the most interesting question here will be how will they account for people who don't end up working in the subject area they studied. There are tons of those in the west, I can't imagine it's very different in the east. How would those stats be calculated and would it hurt or help certain majors? Sadly, not a lot of info available.
DavidChouinard 15y ago
This graph (linked to from the article) on majors and popularity/salary/unemployment rate is quite interesting: http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term= http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=
jdietrich 15y ago
Every day, I see more and more evidence that the Chinese economy is going to eat us alive.

142 points by BlackJack 15y ago

I would love if the United States modified and did this. Do the research on what majors pay and lead to what outcomes - and then shove those results in high school senior's faces often (instead of forcing the majors closed).

unshift 15y ago
why? college is not a job training facility and shouldn't be treated like one. high school's goal is to provide a broad education so a graduate can have the basic knowledge necessary to function in society. not everyone goes to college.
- Scaevolus 15y ago
  In the US, people are encouraged to go to college so that they can get higher-paying jobs. It's seen as a job training facility.
  - tryitnow 15y ago
    This discussion reveals one of the problems with our system of higher education: for some people it's one thing, for others it's something else. Colleges are like companies that are trying to do two very different things at once: broad education and job training. In the world of startups we know what to do when that happens: Choose one direction and go with it, stop trying to be all things to all people. Blended business models rarely work. My guess is that something similar will eventually happen in education. Some institutions will specialize in getting you a paycheck and others will specialize in broader education. I view purely academic coursework in the same category as other luxury goods: it's something some people find fun and exciting and if they want to pay for it, so be it, but society should not foot the bill. Whereas practical "get a job" coursework I view as something that just about everybody needs and maybe there's a good argument for public subsidies or other policies that encourage it.
ams6110 15y ago
This sort of thing only leads to "bubbles" in certain fields, actually lowering the value of the degree and making it harder to find a job once you graduate.
lojack 15y ago
As if math and science isn't force fed enough. My business partner was accused of padding his grades in high school because he was good at art and wanted to take more art classes. Shoving this sort of stuff in high schoolers faces is exactly what kills the drive to learn. How many times do you remember that classmate in the back of the room saying something along the lines of, "Why am I learning this, I'll never use this in real life?" Did you ever think that maybe they were right? I don't know about you, but I'd rather see a country full of people struggling to do something they are passionate about than a country full of people successfully doing something that makes them miserable.

tryitnow 15y ago

I would like to see the US government stop subsidizing majors and colleges that don't get results for their graduates. Now there arises the problem of inadequate funding for the liberal arts majors. But as it is way too many people major in liberal arts and other impractical subjects. Lib arts should be a highly selective group, limited to scholarship recipients and any rich kid whose family has the money. Treating all majors the same really hurts kids who come from working class backgrounds and might not know how society really works. Rarely will you be rewarded for learning for learning's sake. Major in engineering, accounting, nursing, etc. Then your future is pretty solid. Let's stop kidding ourselves about how our society values education.

rluhar 15y ago
I don't think you can count Liberal arts as "impractical" subjects. They may not be "job oriented" but I believe having a foundation in the liberal arts does allow for perhaps a broader education than focusing on a very narrow (albeit deep) technical field from a young age. Maybe some people are better suited to be generalists as opposed to specialists? I don't think restricting a Liberal Arts education for "those who can pay" is a good idea. In Japan, some companies (especially in banking) hire people to work as generalists. They tend to rotate through a variety of roles as their career progresses. I don't think it is the most efficient allocation of resources, but it does make for employees who have a wider view of the business, and more importantly a network and contacts across a variety of fields. Like most people commenting here, I have a very specialized technical education (Comp Sci major), but I actually wonder if my education could have been a little broader. I learnt most of what I know at work anyway!!
- abhimishra 15y ago
  Perhaps you aren't suggesting exactly this, but I don't understand the commonly-held view that those in technical majors don't have a 'broad education'. Most people I've known in technical majors have as broad an education as any liberal-arts major I know. I personally feel that even in the absence of breadth requirements (which at my university are non-trivial), most of my classmates would be as well-educated as they are now, simply because they have the ability to read and absorb information. Students who go to college and get a liberal-arts education often don't retain their major-specific knowledge once they move into the job market and into a role that has nothing to do with what they studied. What they are supposed to retain though, is learning- and critical-thinking skills that make them better at various jobs than someone who did not go to college at all. And that same learning- and critical-thinking ability is something technical majors also develop quite well - hence I don't see a liberal arts education as having a monopoly on developing 'generalists' or really providing any advantage in that regard. Naturally this is also a problem of efficient allocation. I think there is value in the knowledge produced by every field - however we require different levels of supply for different skills/knowledge - and I would further argue that this variation in demand for skills has always existed throughout human history. Since society is both funding education and creating this demand, it makes sense to me that we meet that demand partly by creating the correct supply of variously-educated citizens.

keiferski 15y ago

It doesn't get much more short-sighted than this. What happens in 20 years if engineers are everywhere and can't get work? Instead, let's make liberal arts degrees cheaper. There's no reason why a Philosophy or English degree needs to cost 15k+ a year. It's been said before, and it needs said again: a liberal arts education is just as valuable today as it was 300 years ago. The current problem is one of cost, not of value.

dreamux 15y ago
I think that's backwards. Make Science/Engineering cheaper and liberal arts more expensive... arts degrees should be considered luxury items: nice to have but not strictly necessary. I think many people would be better off not going to University than get an arts degree, whereas there is huge societal benefit to pushing out more scientists and engineers. Liberal arts should exist, just at a much smaller (frankly, more reasonable wrt actual demand) scale.
- keiferski 15y ago
  If the objective is to maximize short-term economic gains, then yes, that would work. If the objective is to create well-rounded, cross-disciplinary citizens, then no, that is a horrible idea. Regardless, I think it's a false dichotomy. Why does one have to be expensive while the other is cheap? And why can't someone get both a liberal arts education and a "practical" education? I see no reason why a student can't pay 5k for a 2-3 year liberal arts degree, and then go on to (competitively-priced) a 2-3 year engineering degree.
  - anamax 15y ago
    > If the objective is to create well-rounded, cross-disciplinary citizens, then no, that is a horrible idea. How about some evidence that liberal arts graduates have anything to do with "well-rounded, cross-disciplinary citizens"? As someone noted above, STEM folk are far more cross-disciplinary than liberal arts grads.
    - 15y ago

ams6110 15y ago

From the piece: Chinese have questioned whether someone like Apple founder Steve Jobs could ever emerge from an education system that seeks to push down students who stand out from the crowd. Do they not realize Jobs was a dropout??

wtvanhest 15y ago
This is my favorite quote: "Many university professors in China are unhappy with the Ministry of Education’s move" The author goes on to make a weak argument about demand in distant future, but we all know which professors are upset, those that teach subjects which do not generate jobs for their students. (Most likely they are there teaching because they themselves couldn't get jobs in their field) *I realize that this is a harsh view, but it is worth mentioning even though it is a little extreme.
rsanchez1 15y ago
Sounds like they're looking for a system where the Steve Jobs' of the world have what they need in school to become successful. There are probably a lot of Steve Jobs' who do drop out, but going through years of college drained their enthusiasm.
- CamperBob 15y ago
  What Jobs needed to become successful was to drop out, start a company, get kicked out of said company, hit bottom, and wander around in India for awhile. None of that requires a degree. Woz also lacked any sort of degree when he worked for HP and Apple. He only went back for his BSEE after he'd already made his mark.

Tsagadai 15y ago

Yeah, all those arts graduates filling prisons with dissidents. There are already calls in the comments for a similar system in other countries. Why should university be about getting a job? Shouldn't university be about learning, and being recognised for learning. A history major or a poetry degree may not be the best way to get a job but I would prefer to live in a society with poets and historians. Jobless, educated young people are copping a lot of flak from the media everywhere at the moment. They are a drain on the economy, "they are the 99%", they are having Arab springs where spring lasts all year, they are making molotovs in Greece. They are agents for changing society. The underlying current of this idea in education is that we should all be happy little workers. Universities have been commercialised away from being the places that brought about the Enlightenment to places for turning out more advanced labourers. Universities are becoming (some have already become) an extension of the standard school system. I found university to be a cacophony of ideas and viewpoints that until that point I had never really experienced. It introduced me to thoughts and ideas I may have never of experienced if I stayed in a small country town. Degree-mills rarely ever have this sort of environment and if all universities are reduced to churning out technical apprentices the world will be a worse place for it.

GHFigs 15y ago
The problem is not (e.g.) poets and historians, but that the supply of people-qualified-to-be-poets and people-qualified-to-be-historians exceeds the demand for them. (Full disclosure: I am a high school dropout, so I'm not qualified to do anything.)
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Agreed. I have a history degree, and program professionally. Universities are about expanding your mind, not turning into Good Employee.
- ColdAsIce 15y ago
  Well hey there mate, I have a BA in History and program professionally too. JavaEE at work, and python on GNU/Linux all the way at home.

gtz65 15y ago

way too many people think that the only purpose of education is to earn money. It isn't. Education has intrinsic value.

KevinEldon 15y ago
Education's general value is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Once you have learned to critically study and learn a subject of your choosing the value of education is mostly related to the value of what you produce from what you've learned. A hermit who learns the secrets of the universe and doesn't share is of no real value. A history (or engineering) major who doesn't learn how to apply what they've studied is of little use. I think it's just generally easier for engineering majors, or business majors to apply what they've learned.
randomdata 15y ago
Agreed. Education is a hobby – and that is a good thing. Hobbies always are to the betterment of the person engaging in them. Hobbies can, and often do, lead to high paying jobs and careers. Hobbies lead you to meet all kinds of interesting people who will shape your future. Hobbies are, if nothing else, enjoyable. We just need to not lose sight of the fact that you should never bank your future on a hobby. Starting a band has made a lot of people incredibly wealthy, but that doesn't mean your band will find success. Do it because you love it, not because you want to be rich. There is nothing you can do to prepare yourself to be successful, else everyone would be.
Jach 15y ago
The problem is people complect education with college, most egregiously in the private sector with companies requiring BS/BA degrees to do any job (and reasonably above minimal wage). In the US, most education is free or nearly so, especially in the humanities, if you're willing to do it on your own. College on the other hand is obscenely expensive, both in opportunity costs as well as the actual loans and so on. In order to combat that expense, you should have "something to show for it" that's applicable in the job market when you're done. The purpose of college has become making money, via getting that piece of paper, social connections, etc. If you sign up for a liberal arts degree priced at $100k, you're doing a bad job at making money (and a pretty bad job at educating depending on where you go--even with Computer Science if you pick a bad school you could have learned everything and more in 1 year that the school took 4 years to teach you). Since you're doing a bad job, you should be mocked in the way a person whose goal is to profit in a yard sale and who ends up paying people to take stuff away, should be mocked.

jluan 15y ago

Market forces aren't good enough for them :P

ChuckMcM 15y ago

I am really glad the Chinese are doing this. Not because I think it is a good idea, it is an astonishingly bad idea, but because in doing it they will demonstrate just how bad an idea it is. I am very much a free market type person, I think anyone should be able to get any degree they want. And I think that people should understand that just any degree doesn't mean they will be employable after they graduate. But we do need folks who are passionate about lots of different things, and take those passions rigorously to the highest level. The Chinese may find that someone who would excel in Art History and who would have, had they been allowed to, enabled others to develop deeper insights into their culture by looking at the art that their culture has created, may be really crappy business majors, or science majors. And making it harder for businesses to discern between people who wanted to be in business and those who were 'forced' into it, also harder which will make those businesses less efficient at employing folks. I hope at that point everyone will look back and go "Gee that was a stupid idea." and we won't have to debate hypothetical 'what if' type arguments.

Volpe 15y ago
Why was the sibling comment from sinope [1] down voted to death, when it was highly relevant, and factually more correct than those around it. Seriously HN, do you want to share knowledge and discuss things, or filter out people with differing views? Edit: added link for clarity. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3276199 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3276199
- 18pfsmt 15y ago
  FYI, that comment was not down-voted; the account is hell-banned.
lpolovets 15y ago
You bring up a good point, but this would also be a very painful way to prove that a stupid idea is stupid. Many people will suffer in order to make an obvious point even more obvious.
JamesBlair 15y ago
> And making it harder for businesses to discern between people who wanted to be in business and those who were 'forced' into it, also harder which will make those businesses less efficient at employing folks. It was my impression that Chinese students followed their parents ambitions. So I am not so sure that this effect will be all that noticeable. If I'm wrong here feel free to eviscerate me. As a side note: I upvoted you for bullet biting.

wavephorm 15y ago

I think more industries need to adopt the tradesmen style apprenticeship before allowing someone to pursue post-secondary education. They should also be forced to employ apprentices before being able to hire someone with a degree -- too many students exit university with no real-world experience or any idea what their work will be like once their degree is complete. If you really, really want to do a 3 year philosophy degree, I think should at least have to do a year as an apprentice philosopher.

markbao 15y ago

This is a little disheartening. It'll prevent people from expanding their mind in the subject area that they want, and instead, they're told that they should be studying sciences, engineering, business, or something else that'll be more "useful." Undoubtedly, I can see why China's doing it. It's utilitarian. College is already (wrongly) seen as "job training," and this will deepen that. But the number of jobs filled is one of many measures of "useful," and this threatens to make it the only one. Nobody can predict what will come of that. Telling people that they can only pursue a certain set of majors because they're useful, and if they don't like any of them, then too bad, seems a little nearsighted.

est 15y ago

As a native Chinese who graduated from a 211 & 985 college in China just few years ago, I think there are really some media manipulation going on here. It's not they are going to do this, the Ministry already started this rule in as early as 2004-12-10. The problem it trying to solve is that, there are too many low-level buzz-word fancy term majors created in Chinese universities, like "nanotech", "earth science", or "life science". These majors often only covers a superficial fraction of the subject, and allows quick rote learning only on some intro theory, then quickly issue a diploma. The hardcore part of knowledge is hard thus left to other traditional majors Why do Chinese have diploma greed? Because diploma is a hyper-inflation profitable industry in China. Nearly every bullshit job requires a BS degree, they employer just want to make the company staff looks "better educated" These "hot" majors are not really teaching any knowledge, but an easy way to grab a degree, so the students can gain their entry to various job titles. The college make lots of money by expanding cheap majors. But the students learns too few to start a serious career, so in a competitive job markets these students have much higher failure rate than similar harder majors. In fact, corrupted officials/businessman can order famous univ. to create a special, private major for themselves, their daughters and sons. They don't even have to spend full 4 year time school to get a very high degree. In addition, "new & new" majors" name is very similar to other authentic ones (aka ShanZhai majors) but requires a lot less effort to accomplish. So the Ministry started to ban major frauds, under the name of "low employment rate". Are they going to cancel or stop funding traditional liberal arts majors? I don't think they are really that stupid. Are there humanities majors effected by this rule? Sure.

d_r 15y ago
This does make much more sense compared to the assumption we immediately jump to ("eliminating liberal arts majors.") Actual facts aside, what is fascinating is how we arrive to this assumption. The article only mentions "unemployable graduates." Nowhere does it mention humanities or specific majors. It is then we, the readers, who apply our Western worldview and assume this means "humanities majors."
- Tsagadai 15y ago
  For what it's worth, the article did end with a mention about humanities majors in the closing line, "psychology, U.S. history and military technologies". While not humanities, Military technologies is an easy one to work out why people are unemployed. There are few people employed in military industries who weren't in the military, hence difficulty finding work. So it is easy to see why comments are about humanities when the article's closing line singles humanities out. Thanks to the grandparent poster for the deeper insight.

teyc 15y ago

Someone should start a website to anonymously survey the following for US grads: 1. Years since graduation 2. Major 3. University 4. Employed/Unemployed in related field 5. GPA At least this way, there could be some basis in informed decision making by potential students.

simonbrown 15y ago
There is a WSJ table that lists data for majors, but not universities. http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/ http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/ There's a website listing more detailed data on UK grads. http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/ http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/

afterburner 15y ago

est's comment (which may be true) notwithstanding, this does not surprise me. China is a communist country of the Cold War mold, if not in all the particulars, then at least in some of its centralist, autocratic ways. Communist countries of this type have outright told people what they should study, to fill particular state needs. That there is freedom to choose in China is a sign of course that this is 2011, not 1970, but still... it makes this kind of thing not at all shocking.

_delirium 15y ago

I was going to try participating in this discussion, but instead I'm just going to say: Wow, as a computer scientist, most of the comments in these kinds of discussions leave me disheartened and embarrassed with the arrogance ("useless", etc.) of my fellow technical folks. A discussion about where to allocate graduates makes sense, but the kind of unjustifiably arrogant invective here doesn't. I think people might want to look at whether their house is made of glass a bit more as well, before denigrating "useless" historians and throwing around phrases like "contributes to the country's advancement". Is the webapp you're working on really a great contribution to society? Is Zynga producing value that will move our civilization forward?

PakG1 15y ago

I think the most interesting question here will be how will they account for people who don't end up working in the subject area they studied. There are tons of those in the west, I can't imagine it's very different in the east. How would those stats be calculated and would it hurt or help certain majors? Sadly, not a lot of info available.

DavidChouinard 15y ago

This graph (linked to from the article) on majors and popularity/salary/unemployment rate is quite interesting: http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term= http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=

jdietrich 15y ago

Every day, I see more and more evidence that the Chinese economy is going to eat us alive.