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Degrees were never about a financial return. Their original purpose was to indicate a license to teach. It's not supposed to get you a good job. Some jobs requi

Degrees were never about a financial return. Their original purpose was to indicate a license to teach. It's not supposed to get you a good job. Some jobs require a degree, but that doesn't mean the degree is for getting a job.

monero-xmr 4y ago
I would love for degrees to be about “learning how to learn”. However if that’s what their purpose is, and not to guarantee with high likelihood an ability to earn an income, then the price of these degrees has to fall. Or at least taxpayers need to stop letting 18 year olds borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars for them. I think academics put the blinders on, as everyone does when their own livelihood is at stake, by telling themselves, “well the degree isn’t supposed to lead to anything concrete, we are teaching how to learn, and that’s priceless.” Unfortunately when such a credential costs $200k+, this reverts the university system back to what it was originally - a finishing school for the elite, where they make connections with similar types on their way to careers in business, law, and politics.
- jltsiren 4y ago
  Education is not the expensive part in higher education. The real expense is the American college experience. College is a separate phase of life between childhood and adulthood, universities compete for students by providing all kinds of unnecessary amenities, and the campuses look more like towns than universities.
janalsncm 4y ago
This is only true if you accept what schools say they are and ignore how education functions in modern society. Yes, some jobs require a degree. Which ones? All of the most high paying jobs. If that weren’t the case, if degrees actually weren’t about financial return, schools would find it impossible to command the huge tuitions that they do. If the present-day purpose of bachelor’s degrees had anything to do with teaching you wouldn’t see 40% of millennials getting college degrees. Perhaps in some semantic sense college is not “for” getting a job but only in the same sense that it’s not “for” building a social network for example. And that doesn’t change the fact that for the vast majority of people a positive financial return is exactly their calculation.

monero-xmr 4y ago

I would love for degrees to be about “learning how to learn”. However if that’s what their purpose is, and not to guarantee with high likelihood an ability to earn an income, then the price of these degrees has to fall. Or at least taxpayers need to stop letting 18 year olds borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars for them. I think academics put the blinders on, as everyone does when their own livelihood is at stake, by telling themselves, “well the degree isn’t supposed to lead to anything concrete, we are teaching how to learn, and that’s priceless.” Unfortunately when such a credential costs $200k+, this reverts the university system back to what it was originally - a finishing school for the elite, where they make connections with similar types on their way to careers in business, law, and politics.

jltsiren 4y ago
Education is not the expensive part in higher education. The real expense is the American college experience. College is a separate phase of life between childhood and adulthood, universities compete for students by providing all kinds of unnecessary amenities, and the campuses look more like towns than universities.

janalsncm 4y ago

This is only true if you accept what schools say they are and ignore how education functions in modern society. Yes, some jobs require a degree. Which ones? All of the most high paying jobs. If that weren’t the case, if degrees actually weren’t about financial return, schools would find it impossible to command the huge tuitions that they do. If the present-day purpose of bachelor’s degrees had anything to do with teaching you wouldn’t see 40% of millennials getting college degrees. Perhaps in some semantic sense college is not “for” getting a job but only in the same sense that it’s not “for” building a social network for example. And that doesn’t change the fact that for the vast majority of people a positive financial return is exactly their calculation.