rehctub,

From Judith Sloan:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/studied-lessons-in-career-suicide/story-fnbkvnk7-1226827599569

"I think the most revealing aspect of the conversation was about the incentives universities face that are not really connected to the job prospects of their graduates. This is particularly the case now we have demand-driven enrollments. Put on a course in which sufficient numbers of students will enroll; adjust the cut-off mark to achieve the required number of students; then count the money rolling in from Canberra."

"To be sure, universities are keen to boast about the employment outcomes of their graduates and the salaries they receive. But bums on seats is a far stronger incentive than adjusting student numbers in particular fields of study according to the job prospects that graduates face."

Also from Judith: Domestic student numbers at Australian universities rose by nearly 180,000 between 2007 and 2012, to reach 934,000. That’s an increase of more than 23 per cent.

Judith again: Armed with their postgraduate qualifications, many of graduates (she refers to) are now doing jobs that were once done by those with undergraduate degrees and, in some cases, school leavers.

I personally read online of one case involving a university trained nurse who ended up working behind a supermarket checkout, after she had completed study. The oversupply of university graduates needs to be addressed and the "sexy" advertising campaigns to get people into university need to be looked at.

Universities and life long learning? There is still some of that, somewhere, but money and a selling factor of "university = grand person" quite clearly has become big driving factor. It's clearly big business.

Doctors; vets; legal professions may have universities serving a good knowledge base. Philosophy; economics that have few economists agreeing with each other, are more learning for learning sake.
Universities are a good population control first baby delayer. education first child delaying reduces long term family sizes.

Where many people during the 1930s, left school in there mid teens, science; computers; technology has teenagers first employment opportunities away from force non paying labours delayed. the quality of societies' human behaviours are not improving was forced competitive mentally stressful education, which I believe contributes to high rates of suicide.

Colleges in the USA allow education competition for employment to consume un-wanted workers, charging students for consuming their time away from paying employment, delaying the birth of their first child. Competition for future employment has high school leavers being paid far less wage rewards for unskilled work.
US College graduates after 20 years of employment, losing their employment, may have new employers state that their 20 years ago college education is out of date.

After university is complete, many graduates may only find employment that barely uses subjects studied at universities. Employment was allowed because students went through a natural selection stress testing process without dropping out of university.
An example: university road engineer graduates may find themselves filling out reports working at councils, never needing to inspect roads.

Education for education's sake...

steve101, I'd expect a road engineer to have a degree in civil engineering, and some of what they learn it that would be of great value writing reports for the council.

Inspecting roads is a small part of the road engineering process, but I'd be surprised if any council road engineers never needed to do it.

Keep in mind that Australia has the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector, as a low cost complement to universities. I have been a student of, and teach courses both at, university and in the vocational sector, and they both have their place. If you want a job, then VET is a good place to start. If you want to advance in a career, then university is an option. How we get affordable on-line education is something I discussed at Cambridge University last week: http://osc.cam.ac.uk/roundtable-discussion-quickly-developing-online-versions-learning-materials-graduate-students

I am a BSc, mechanical engineering.

When I was involved in supplying, installing & commissioning medium industrial machinery, I actually used a bit of my training to work out the footings required for this equipment. Great. I could not do it any better however than the concreting contractor, who'd had only a couple of years of a plumbing apprenticeship.

When I went motor racing, it was an amateur, an accountant sales tax expert, who taught me how to run & maintain a racing engine. My university training was useless, in that context.

When he & I built the most successful & reliable racing engine in Oz at that time, it was his knowledge & amateur experience, not my training that was most important in our success.

When I met one of my old professors, [my favourite] & excitedly told him what & how we did it, he told me our ideas would never work. I guess he missed the fact they had & were.

Universities are now too full of ivory tower sitters to be worth even a quarter of what they cost the taxpayer.

My BSc did gave me some math, & taught me how to think logically, but a one year course could have done that, & more, a lot less expensively.