Over the past couple of days, this thread has had me thinking. Alas, I've had difficulty putting my thoughts into words, and will probably fail dismally in that endeavour now. Still, I'll try.

The part that's had me thinking is the common (in this thread and elsewhere) denigration of the humble arts degree. The fact that universities in Australia turn out humanities graduates has been used as evidence of the failing of our system; arts graduates of all disciplines seem to be tarred with the brush of halfwits and idiots. Sadly, this is often the case.

From experience, I'd say an arts degree can be a very useful thing. Obviously, as an English teacher, it's been useful for me professionally; however, I think there are wider applications. An arts degree offers training in critical thinking, reasoning and problem-solving - skills that can certainly be picked up elsewhere, but aren't necessarily offered in too many other degrees. I found my studies in biotechnology intellectually stifling: there was no space for thinking or reasoning - it was merely rote learning of facts and a series of constant reminders that I was inferior to the people who knew better than me. My studies in arts presented the opposite.

The trouble is, it takes an intelligent person to apply these skills outside the university context. To compound this problem, so many places are offered in arts degrees (due to the commercialism so rightly condemned by Mitchell) that halfwits can quite easily gain access, scrape through on the mantra that 'Ps get degrees' and achieve nothing. The right person can do the right thing with the right degree. Unfortunately, our universities do little (and can do little, with centralised admissions centres) to find the right people. The wrong person with the wrong degree is an enormous waste of taxes.

Mitchell that's a fail old boy, couldn't be more wrong actually.

My grandfather on my fathers side came out as aide-d-camp with a governor general.

My mad aunt traced mums lineage back to a naval officer at Trafalgar, but then she did write fantasy, so I'll take that with a grain of salt. However, it is straight English, all the way, not that I consider that any recommendation.

Straight protestant, until the last couple of generations, where any type of religion was simply ignored. I have never been able to see how anyone could believe any of it.

Pillar of society, wore the kings uniform with pride once, but retirement, time to research, & the net has opened my eyes.

Unfortunately I found folk with unjustifiable egos like you, & I'll bet you are a warmest.

From personal experience, I think the major problem with creeping credentialism is one of focus.
I have been doing external courses for several decades now, in various fields from IT, business studies, accountancy, horticulture, 'advanced' (hands on) engineering, etc. Once the the attitude was “you're here to learn something. If you do, you'll get a certificate to prove it”.
In the last few years the attitude appears to have changed to: “you're here to get a certificate. Who knows, you might learn something while you're doing it.”
RTO's appear to be the worst offenders. As private corporations contracting to the gummint, they are totally focussed on pumping out as many graduates as possible, for obvious reasons.
Vibrant Capitalism relies almost as much on failure, as it does competition. It is after all, 'the fish so and so rejects...”
When PC extends to the point where no one fails, or success depends on merely showing up, we may as well call a spade a bloody great shovel.
We don't have an education system. We have a certificate system.

Thing is Mitch, what's not said/responded speaks volumes - a clayton's admission (cue for once gone before).

Like that infallible hunk of meat once sang, 2 out of 3 ain't bad :)

Oto and Grim - well said!

Yabby,
so are you saying you want Australia's universities privatised? I don't approve of high salaries either but universities have to compete with the rest of the world for high-profile academics--it's not an Australian problem--and the salaries are nothing to the private sector, which lacks the kudos--and by the way philosophy departments in the UK have been targeted for a few years now and are dying by attrition. There's no longer anything to think about it seems; either it makes money or it's out. Do you really want a world dedicated to the bottom line and indifferent to culture, philosophy and politics? As if politics was answerable to nothing more than the exchequer. Politics is properly based on philosophy, not populism. The problem for me at the moment is that universities have been popularised; we're a wealthy country and university is open to anyone who wants a ticket, or diversion, almost regardless of merit, based on the improvement and employability and even faux-equality of the lowest common denominator. There was a time when higher learning was elitist and only open to the well-to-do, regardless of merit, whereas now it's open to everyone regardless of merit--the only rationale for the country being the international stakes, and the long-shot that if you throw enough money at a problem it will make money; the more insidious agenda being that the masses thereby make a psychosocial investment in the status quo.
I agree with your comments, Otokonoko; it's such a shame that the Arts are the soft-option for idlers--I suspect because the assessment is so subjective, or qualitative as they say--all part of the postmodern syndrome.
Hasbeen,
I don't pretend to have a crystal ball; you just remind me of my father-in-law and it was him I was describing.
Grim, astute as always.
I think we all agree there are huge problems with life-long learning and idle hands. For what it's worth, I still keep my hand in with various practical skills. A good book to read is Richard Sennett's "The New Culture of Capitalism".