Suppose I accept at face value this statement that:
"for every extra 50,000 university graduates, an additional $1.8 billion of economic activity is generated annually."

That would mean that universities, which were supposed to be repositories of wisdom and [if not spiritual then at least] intellectual detachment, instead heat up the economy and encourage materialism.

- One good reason to close them!

"useless for getting meaningful and needed employment". ttbn.

Sorry ttbn, that is not correct. Some sort of university qualification is an automatic entry to a clerk job in the bureaucracy.

On second thoughts, you are definitely right with the meaningful bit.

Hasbeen

Right about the government clerical jobs, and others, where employers insist unnecessarily on tertiary qualifications and prevent non-university graduates from working.

And, all those idiotic decisions, policies etc that brought us to the social & economic pit we're in now, are made by people who have been to UNI !
Sadie the cleaning lady & Bob the Builder would definitely do a better job than than the self-serving pseudo intellectual ignorant elite !

Kudos guys.