<story><title>Half of UK university students think degree is poor value for money</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/24/half-of-uk-university-students-think-degree-is-poor-value-for-money</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cosmodisk</author><text>As in most countries in Europe, the value of a university degree is diminishing because the vast majority of population has it. If back in the day,it used to be 10-20% tops, now in some countries it&amp;#x27;s as high as 60-80%, while at the same time competing for jobs that often don&amp;#x27;t require such education to start with.&lt;p&gt;[Edit]
I still remember how not so long time ago it wasn&amp;#x27;t uncommon to have masters as a bare minimum when hiring a secretary in my country...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bobtail3</author><text>I think you make a good point, but your numbers seem way off. What countries are you aware of that even get close to 60-80% of completed college education? The list below shows the highest at 61% for Canada (between the ages of 35-44) [1]. But that list is also including things like community college, trade schools, and other forms of professional development. It seems to me that a much more accurate range is something like 25-40% for most developed countries.&lt;p&gt;I think what is really going on with degrees being a poor investment, is that most degrees don&amp;#x27;t actually teach valuable skills or they do and the students just don&amp;#x27;t actually put in the necessary work to achieve those skills. Instead treating it as a game of how to pass while putting in as little work as possible. That was at least my experience TAing computer science courses. Most students were just not mature enough to value the education that was being offered.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: A more generous interpretation to the students would be that they were simply jaded after a lack luster and uninspiring high school education plus a similar experience in probably many of the college classes they were taking.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Half of UK university students think degree is poor value for money</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/24/half-of-uk-university-students-think-degree-is-poor-value-for-money</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cosmodisk</author><text>As in most countries in Europe, the value of a university degree is diminishing because the vast majority of population has it. If back in the day,it used to be 10-20% tops, now in some countries it&amp;#x27;s as high as 60-80%, while at the same time competing for jobs that often don&amp;#x27;t require such education to start with.&lt;p&gt;[Edit]
I still remember how not so long time ago it wasn&amp;#x27;t uncommon to have masters as a bare minimum when hiring a secretary in my country...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mschuster91</author><text>&amp;gt; If back in the day,it used to be 10-20% tops, now in some countries it&amp;#x27;s as high as 60-80%, while at the same time competing for jobs that often don&amp;#x27;t require such education to start with.&lt;p&gt;The change is because employers love degrees... they prove that a job applicant can reliably get out of bed and do quality work in a timely fashion (and thus reduce the risk for the employer to hire someone who turns out to be a &amp;quot;bad fit&amp;quot;, have mental health issues etc.), and especially the IT degrees have a large part of knowledge transfer and training in them that the employer doesn&amp;#x27;t have to pay for like in a classic apprenticeship.&lt;p&gt;Academia should be a place for science and those interested in advancing it, not for employers to save costs on vetting and training (by placing the burden on the government and&amp;#x2F;or the students)!</text></comment>