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The UK has 3 of the top 10 universities in the world: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/latest/world-ranking https://www.timeshighe

The UK has 3 of the top 10 universities in the world: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/latest/world-ranking https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... It's a talent pool that many big employers want to tap into across a range of skills and industries. Cambridge is the best place to do bio-science and research. That is largely because the UK provides training and opportunities to its young people. "I saw that 20 years go" is one data point that ignores the wider statistics. I'm not sure what else you can back your argument with.

mrwh 7mo ago
That's rather the point: the UK has been great at educating a very narrow sliver of its population, decided at 18 years old. Pointing to Oxbridge as a success story is very much like pointing to London as a world city. Yes, it's world class -- now look at the rest of the country.
nitwit005 7mo ago
The people who aren't graduates of those universities also matter.
- zcw100 7mo ago
  They should but they don't and that's the problem.
varispeed 7mo ago
These rankings are meaningless. If you actually studied in the UK, you'd notice a massive change in the last 5 years. Universities do not teach anymore (perhaps with a few exceptions), they are facilitating visas for foreign students without any expectation they'll be learning anything and nobody cares. They pass the exams barely attending any lectures. Everyone is happy, except home students who get massive debt and no actual useful skills.
- katdork 7mo ago
  It's actually more like the past 10 years? (Certainly was when I was in university back 8 years ago) Maybe longer. But, I like to reference https://marktarver.com/professor.html https://marktarver.com/professor.html on the state of education in the UK.
- davnicwil 7mo ago
  To push back on this, I actually don't think the real role of a university is to teach, per se. The real role they play is something very different to everything that comes before in education, and a bit closer to everything in the world that will ideally come after: immersion in your field of choice in an environment full of curious peers who are variously a few steps ahead of you, all the way up to world class experts in the field doing research. Parts of your interactions there may include being actively taught relevant things, but the more important goal is to let you explore this environment and the material (yes, with a bit of structure) and in doing so figure out how to learn on your own. You absolutely should be able to get a degree with top marks without attending a single lecture, seminar, lab, whatever, just by reading the material and interacting with those around you less formally, and never being actively 'taught' anything. Many in fact do something approaching this, particularly in the later years of a degree.
  - dsf2 7mo ago
    Not everyone wants this though. "You absolutely should be able to get a degree with top marks without attending a single lecture, seminar, lab, whatever, just by reading the material and interacting with those around you less formally, and never being actively 'taught' anything." So people should pay 9k a year to get a glorified piece of paper, when they essentially have taught themselves?
    - davnicwil 7mo ago
      I mean, yes, except for the framing of paying for the piece of paper. The piece of paper is just the evidence that you've been through a journey successfully. What you're really paying for is access to the environment that facilitates that journey. The journey is essentially transitioning from a system which is pricipally about executing diligently on well-defined instructions, to one which is about reaching more broadly defined and often even self-selected goals by whatever means you choose. Obviously aspects overlap, the changes come in steadily over the years of a degree, and even in the most ideal case it's still basically just practice, but the journey is supposed to develop the higher order skills that at that age you are ready to develop, and must develop to succeed 'in the wild' so to speak. Absolutely 100% one of those higher order skills, indeed maybe the most important, is being able to self-teach whatever necessary to fill in gaps in order to do something interesting, that won't be provided for you or made easy for you in any way. You have to figure it out on your own. Just as you will have to in more or less every single challenge you encounter in the world after university. So again, the environment in which you develop those skills (along with so many other benefits) is what you're paying for and the piece of paper, such that it is, is just the evidence you succeeded in that.

mrwh 7mo ago

That's rather the point: the UK has been great at educating a very narrow sliver of its population, decided at 18 years old. Pointing to Oxbridge as a success story is very much like pointing to London as a world city. Yes, it's world class -- now look at the rest of the country.

nitwit005 7mo ago

The people who aren't graduates of those universities also matter.

zcw100 7mo ago
They should but they don't and that's the problem.

varispeed 7mo ago

These rankings are meaningless. If you actually studied in the UK, you'd notice a massive change in the last 5 years. Universities do not teach anymore (perhaps with a few exceptions), they are facilitating visas for foreign students without any expectation they'll be learning anything and nobody cares. They pass the exams barely attending any lectures. Everyone is happy, except home students who get massive debt and no actual useful skills.

katdork 7mo ago
It's actually more like the past 10 years? (Certainly was when I was in university back 8 years ago) Maybe longer. But, I like to reference https://marktarver.com/professor.html https://marktarver.com/professor.html on the state of education in the UK.
davnicwil 7mo ago
To push back on this, I actually don't think the real role of a university is to teach, per se. The real role they play is something very different to everything that comes before in education, and a bit closer to everything in the world that will ideally come after: immersion in your field of choice in an environment full of curious peers who are variously a few steps ahead of you, all the way up to world class experts in the field doing research. Parts of your interactions there may include being actively taught relevant things, but the more important goal is to let you explore this environment and the material (yes, with a bit of structure) and in doing so figure out how to learn on your own. You absolutely should be able to get a degree with top marks without attending a single lecture, seminar, lab, whatever, just by reading the material and interacting with those around you less formally, and never being actively 'taught' anything. Many in fact do something approaching this, particularly in the later years of a degree.
- dsf2 7mo ago
  Not everyone wants this though. "You absolutely should be able to get a degree with top marks without attending a single lecture, seminar, lab, whatever, just by reading the material and interacting with those around you less formally, and never being actively 'taught' anything." So people should pay 9k a year to get a glorified piece of paper, when they essentially have taught themselves?
  - davnicwil 7mo ago
    I mean, yes, except for the framing of paying for the piece of paper. The piece of paper is just the evidence that you've been through a journey successfully. What you're really paying for is access to the environment that facilitates that journey. The journey is essentially transitioning from a system which is pricipally about executing diligently on well-defined instructions, to one which is about reaching more broadly defined and often even self-selected goals by whatever means you choose. Obviously aspects overlap, the changes come in steadily over the years of a degree, and even in the most ideal case it's still basically just practice, but the journey is supposed to develop the higher order skills that at that age you are ready to develop, and must develop to succeed 'in the wild' so to speak. Absolutely 100% one of those higher order skills, indeed maybe the most important, is being able to self-teach whatever necessary to fill in gaps in order to do something interesting, that won't be provided for you or made easy for you in any way. You have to figure it out on your own. Just as you will have to in more or less every single challenge you encounter in the world after university. So again, the environment in which you develop those skills (along with so many other benefits) is what you're paying for and the piece of paper, such that it is, is just the evidence you succeeded in that.