Wait, I am a bit confused about where we stand. Can we establish as common knowledge that university is mostly about signalling and not about gaining knowledge that is useful in jobs? Do we also agree that apprenticeships/live experience are a better way to gain job relevant skill? Do we also agree that we’re stuck in an inadequate equilibrium right now, with strong forces stopping messing things up on the supply and demand side for apprenticeships? And that the purpose of your article was to say “hey, there’s a problem here. Think about it some more” rather than to present new insights?
I have heard the theory put forward a lot that a university degree provides plausible deniability to the person who makes the decision to hire you. If you turn out to be a problem then whoever hired you can say “degree from X” and suddenly no one can blame them for making a bad choice. If you hire a 17 year old who “seems competent” then they probably are fine, but if something goes wrong the person who made the hiring decision suddenly has to defend the “they seemed competent” position in a hypothetical where everyone now knows they were not.
The usefulness of university depends on the job. It’s better for networking than anything.
And yes, I’m just calling some attention to the problem. I’ve considered a few solutions but nothing stands out as reasonably implementable within our Overton window
Wait, I am a bit confused about where we stand. Can we establish as common knowledge that university is mostly about signalling and not about gaining knowledge that is useful in jobs? Do we also agree that apprenticeships/live experience are a better way to gain job relevant skill? Do we also agree that we’re stuck in an inadequate equilibrium right now, with strong forces stopping messing things up on the supply and demand side for apprenticeships? And that the purpose of your article was to say “hey, there’s a problem here. Think about it some more” rather than to present new insights?
I have heard the theory put forward a lot that a university degree provides plausible deniability to the person who makes the decision to hire you. If you turn out to be a problem then whoever hired you can say “degree from X” and suddenly no one can blame them for making a bad choice. If you hire a 17 year old who “seems competent” then they probably are fine, but if something goes wrong the person who made the hiring decision suddenly has to defend the “they seemed competent” position in a hypothetical where everyone now knows they were not.
The usefulness of university depends on the job. It’s better for networking than anything.
And yes, I’m just calling some attention to the problem. I’ve considered a few solutions but nothing stands out as reasonably implementable within our Overton window