• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Are too many people getting university degrees?

Nessie

Penultimate Amazing
Nessie
Joined
Jun 16, 2012
Messages
16,162
I ask because of this;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42923529

"Many graduates receive "paltry returns" for their degrees despite racking up £50,000 in debt, says the chairman of the Education Select Committee.
Robert Halfon will say in a speech on Monday, that between a fifth and a third of graduates take non-graduate jobs, and that any extra returns for having a degree "vary wildly".
He will also suggest that too many people are studying academic degrees.
University leaders maintain that a degree remains an excellent investment."

Who is correct? The minister claiming too many people are getting degrees, or the universities?

I have a degree and went into a non-degree job, the police. But, I do not think I wasted my degree by doing that. There were certain roles within my job that I excelled at and that was because I had a degree and the skills which come with having a degree. My job also paid well, entry was at what is the average wage and by the time I retired I was in the 78th percentile of wage earners in the UK.

So that between a fifth and a third of graduates take a non-degree job (as in you do not need a degree to get the job) is not necessarily the issue.

There may be a point that there is an excess of graduates, some of whom would have been better off going by the college route and getting far less expensive qualifications, such as Higher National Diplomas before going into work.

I think there is also an issue with some so called degree courses being a degree in name only and the standard of work and learning is not great.

But, overall I think society does better with a better educated workforce, even if that means too many people with degrees.
 
More a matter of getting the wrong degree, probably. My brother got a bachelor's in Psychology, which qualified him for exactly nothing. He spent his entire working life doing customer service at the phone company.
 
I think you're right in most of your points, and would emphasize the two below:

1) Too many degrees themselves aren't very useful or are ideologically driven or have very low standards/workload.
2) The standards to get in and once you're in are too low, imo. I was not a good student but maintained an 80 average. At least in Canada, I can see that students make it in who have no understanding of the basic concepts that they should have been spending 2+ years mastering in high school (an example would be stoichiometry in chemistry). I think part of the problem is high schools making it too easy on students or too forgiving. I know they were pretty forgiving of me, as well, since I wasn't a good student though (merely someone who understood things easily and tested well - I didn't have the work ethic that should be required, though)
 
Too many degrees, not enough vocational training.

The decision to convert polytechnics to degree-factory universities was a massive mistake.
 
Yeah a lot of people are told they need to go to university and be "intellectuals". For most candidates, they would be better off getting a technical degree or diploma or apprenticeship in less time and produce themselves a job with better pay
 
Hubert Cumberdale said:
Too many degrees, not enough vocational training.

The decision to convert polytechnics to degree-factory universities was a massive mistake.
Click to expand...

I think they allowed too many to convert, without those former colleges showing they would produce genuine degree quality graduates in degrees that are useful.

Some of the new university bosses ended up on eye watering salaries. For example, Bath College of Higher Education became Bath Spa University in 2005 and pays its vice chancellor £800k in her last year;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-42260090
 
Too many employers want to hire people with a degree, any degree, even if it doesn't apply toward the job itself.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Too many employers want to hire people with a degree, any degree, even if it doesn't apply toward the job itself.
Click to expand...
That may certainly be true. After all, I don't think an employer can require a prospective hire to take an IQ test, but having the ability to finish a university degree (any degree) means that they have to have at least some intelligence/skills.
 
theprestige said:
I don't think society can have "too many degrees". But I do think that a lot of people don't really understand the point of a degree.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. I am always troubled with the idea that some degrees are better than others. I majored in history and have been ridiculed by some as having a "useless" degree. Ultimately, it is not my knowledge of history that got my jobs but my ability to think critically and develop other skills including other graduate degrees.

That being said, people going into college should have a realistic view of what your options are when you graduate. I do believe many people go to college because they think they have to not because the want to or are interested in a topic. In reality, these people might be better served in an apprenticeship and/or trade.
 
Hubert Cumberdale said:
Too many degrees, not enough vocational training.

The decision to convert polytechnics to degree-factory universities was a massive mistake.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more.

I remember Blair saying that he wanted 50% of all youngsters to go to uni, and on another day, saying that 50% of all youngsters should get 5 passes at GCSE. I doubt he ever made the connection in his PR-oriented brain, but that meant that people who got 5 Cs at GCSE would be going to Uni.......which seems pointless both for them, and for society, as well as undermining the value of a university education. It is this vast increase in intake, and the concomitant reduction in the overall quality of the intake, which has meant that jobs which used to require a degree now require a Masters, and jobs that used to require a Masters no require a PhD. I have no problem whatever with elitism in university education.
 
Nessie said:
....Some of the new university bosses ended up on eye watering salaries. For example, Bath College of Higher Education became Bath Spa University in 2005 and pays its vice chancellor £800k in her last year;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-42260090
Click to expand...

I think that's a very different subject, and much more to do with governance, and fee income streams particularly from overseas students.
 
Degrees aren't necessarily vocationally oriented, and neither should they be in my opinion.

To illustrate, science graduates have very high employability rates in Australia - just not in science. The skills they develop completing their degree have application across a wide range of occupations.
 
Trebuchet said:
More a matter of getting the wrong degree, probably. My brother got a bachelor's in Psychology, which qualified him for exactly nothing. He spent his entire working life doing customer service at the phone company.
Click to expand...

This.

Okay at its most basic level a better educated society is always a positive so no in a literal sense "too many people" can never been getting degrees.

But people generally see degrees as monetary investments, not intellectual ones and that... doesn't really make that much sense anymore.

Here in the states people sink 50-300 thousand dollars getting a degree (and before a certain someone pipes up yes I'm sure in the glorious people's utopia of heavenly Sweden everybody has hot and cold running degree taps in their house and get their own personal street paved with gold between their front door and their own personal college professor's house but they are still trading 2-6 years of their key earning years. Time is money even when stuff is free.)

So you wait until your mid-20s to hit the job market optionally loaded with so much debt that even if you get a high paying job you're going to be in the red for years, maybe decades.

Again you can argue that it's about education but these aren't people spending another 2-6 years to get a broad classical liberal education. These are people learning a trade specifically to make money.

It's simple if more people have degrees they will be worth less because it will become the "default" standard. If everybody has an Associates an Associates is just going to be the new High School Diploma and a Bachelor's are going to become the new Associates. That's simple scarcity beyond any economic or government control. You can't make that not true.

So it has created this weird paradoxical bubble that I do feel isn't going to be stable for long.

1. Spend money for a general, broad classic education to gain knowledge which is pointless in a world where the internet exists.
2. Spent money for a specific skillset for a trade and hope you get the money back.
3. Get a technical degree or certification, get a high paying blue collar job, but be seen as "lesser" than someone with "real" degree.
 
The problem isn't "too many degrees", the problem is "higher education is too expensive". A problem that is easily fixable if enough people have the political will to do so.
 
luchog said:
The problem isn't "too many degrees", the problem is "higher education is too expensive". A problem that is easily fixable if enough people have the political will to do so.
Click to expand...
Free™ Education for all?
 
ServiceSoon said:
Free™ Education for all?
Click to expand...

This would be far better - another problem seems to be a massive growth in executive pay, along with basically starving teachers as adjuncts. Universities kinda mirror much of the structure of major corporations in this way - or at least, they do in the US.
 
luchog said:
The problem isn't "too many degrees", the problem is "higher education is too expensive". A problem that is easily fixable if enough people have the political will to do so.
Click to expand...

No. These are both problems, for the reasons that have been given. They are independent problems, though. HIgher education being too expensive is a question for another thread, and, as far as I can tell, has no impact on the question of there being too many people taking university courses and getting degrees which neither they nor society need.
 
MikeG said:
the question of there being too many people taking university courses and getting degrees which neither they nor society need.
Click to expand...


I'm not really seeing why this is a problem. Who decides what sort of education society, or any particular individual for that matter, "needs"? What criteria is "need" based on, and how is the "need" addressed? What impact to these degrees, "needed" or otherwise, have on the individual or society?
 
For me the problem is when jobs which in the past did not need a degree now require a degree, even though there will be no evidence that such a move is required.

An example in the UK is nursing, you used to be able to enter this with a strong secondary education now it requires a degree. Yet when you look at what a relevant degree comprises it is pretty much the same training nurses with a good
secondary education would have received on the job - indeed much of a the degree will still be "on the job" training. This change seems to have happend to move the burden of the cost of training onto individuals rather than an organisation. (I predict within 10 years this will be walked back as we face decreasing numbers of people entering nursing as a career.)
 
luchog said:
........What impact to these degrees, "needed" or otherwise, have on the individual or society?
Click to expand...

The unneeded degrees cost either the individual or society to provide. Neither get a reasonable financial return. Just as importantly, excess degrees devalue degrees such that jobs which previously needed degrees now need Masters. Jobs that previously needed Masters now need PhDs.

All this has been said before. Have you not read the thread?
 
MikeG said:
The unneeded degrees cost either the individual or society to provide. Neither get a reasonable financial return. Just as importantly, excess degrees devalue degrees such that jobs which previously needed degrees now need Masters. Jobs that previously needed Masters now need PhDs.

All this has been said before. Have you not read the thread?
Click to expand...


I have, and you just contradicted yourself:
HIgher education being too expensive is a question for another thread, and, as far as I can tell, has no impact on the question of there being too many people taking university courses and getting degrees which neither they nor society need.
Click to expand...


And I see a lot of assertions, with no actual evidence provided. I want to see the evidence that supports your assertion.

As far as jobs needing degrees, or needing higher degrees, that has not been in any way my experience; and I'd like to see someone provide verifiable evidence that this is the case, and that it is having a negative impact on employability.

A lot of jobs that I've had have stated that they required degrees or experience, but I do not have any such degree, and have never had a problem getting jobs in my field (IT). The degree requirement, if and when it exists, seems to be there strictly to weed out the less motivated, or as a convenient shorthand for HR departments who don't have the technical know-how to evaluate employment applications before forwarding them on to the people actually hiring for those positions. Employers in general are much more interested in current experience than in degrees, the more current the better.

It's just like during the dotcom bubble when everyone was going for the various IT certifications, thinking they were critical and necessary, when the only people who actually cared about them were HR staff, actual department managers didn't. Mostly they only cared because it proved that you were motivated enough to stick with something and do an decent job of it.

I'd go so far as to say that a whole lot of employers aren't really interested in degrees at all anymore, they're only interested in hiring as cheaply as they can, especially for entry-level positions; and higher degrees are often a minor impediment to employment, as employers assume that they'll want to be paid more.

It's possible the "useless" degrees do have an impact, but it's a negligible one next to the more powerful market and regulatory forces at work at this time.
 
Last edited:
lionking said:
Degrees aren't necessarily vocationally oriented, and neither should they be in my opinion.

To illustrate, science graduates have very high employability rates in Australia - just not in science. The skills they develop completing their degree have application across a wide range of occupations.
Click to expand...

Exactly! College is to learn more about the things one wants to better understand. A major is designed to organize this learning into a coherent, more comprehensive, planned, and hopefully synergistic manner than would occur if classes were chosen at random.

Somehow college majors began to be sold as vocational programs and degrees as licenses for careers. For many majors this sort of works: if you want to learn more about computer sciences then likely that knowledge will also make you more employable... in computer sciences.. But that is not really the fundamental point of college as a whole. It is for people to learn more about what interests them. In most cases this knowledge provides them with insights and information that makes their future lives more enjoyable, or should. A liberal arts major is the opposite of useless: it offers people much joy from better appreciating art, music, and broad aspects of culture for the rest of their lives. Unlike computer science liberal arts doesn't directly link to a vocation (other than teaching liberal arts). It may well produce a more well rounded and smarter person who would be more valuable over a range of careers. But the central goal should be the joy of learning stuff the person find fascinating. Even for computer majors.

So I think the question is not simply if there are too many people getting college degrees. It relates to what they've been told about the purpose of getting a college degree. In many cases they have been mislead.
 
I think trying to get half the population through university is a mistake. It's impossible to do this without devaluing the value of a degree as it was when only 10% went to university - you simply can't look for the same standards if the intellectual level of your intake goes so much lower down the population spread. You also starve genuine vocational courses of the moderately bright young people they need to ensure that these necessary jobs find enough takers.

It also means that potential high-fliers can no longer be supported through university, meaning that half the population is struggling with student debt and potentially some of the brightest may be deterred from going in the first place due to lack of means.
 
MikeG said:
The unneeded degrees cost either the individual or society to provide. Neither get a reasonable financial return. Just as importantly, excess degrees devalue degrees such that jobs which previously needed degrees now need Masters. Jobs that previously needed Masters now need PhDs.

All this has been said before. Have you not read the thread?
Click to expand...

But what is unneeded? Is the value of a degree only definable in terms of finances? I think that education in any form adds a great deal to the individual's life and to society as a whole. It can be self education by reading books, obtaining real life experience, researching the web, finding individual mentors, etc. Or as many have found to be easier, it can be a more formal education from institutions (K-12, college, grad school, etc) that are designed to make the transfer of knowledge more organized. But however it is done, I think the more people know the better off they and society are. As the bumper sticker says, if you think education is expensive try ignorance.
 
ServiceSoon said:
Free™ Education for all?
Click to expand...

Enrollment in the University of California used to be free for state citizens. And that worked perfectly well for many decades. Then modest "fees" were instituted, but it was still a wonderful education that even poor people could afford. But recently, as the state has more and more backed away from supporting the university the tuition costs have gone up and up. Currently somewhat over $10,000 a tear for undergraduates. With attempts to reduce the costs based on need. Not the highest tuition, but pretty tough to afford for many,

And of course someone pays for free tuition: taxpayers as a whole. Was it worth it to them? I submit that if you look at the roots of where high tech and the modern economy originated you will find them where there were the most educated populations. Ignorance is not good for societies.

Education for all? Well most agreed that free K-12 education for all is pretty important for society as a whole. I support free college education for the committed and capable.

Bottom line IMO: access to education for the talented and dedicated should not be limited by their financial status.
 
Rolfe said:
I think trying to get half the population through university is a mistake. It's impossible to do this without devaluing the value of a degree as it was when only 10% went to university - you simply can't look for the same standards if the intellectual level of your intake goes so much lower down the population spread. You also starve genuine vocational courses of the moderately bright young people they need to ensure that these necessary jobs find enough takers.
Click to expand...


This, particularly the highlighted part, smacks too much of elitism for me. "My degree will be worthless if too many people have them, therefore it's necessary for only a small elite to have degrees in order to maintain their elite status."

And no one has yet explained how many people having degrees "devalues" the degree. Are we talking a purely utilitarian basis, where employers now have to decide between multiple candidates with the same degree, based on their other qualifications, as opposed to having only a single elite stand out from the rest?

Not everyone is going to want to go to university, so how can making it available to more people make things worse for society, or "starve genuine vocational courses"? Why can't vocational courses be a part of university education?

In the US, at least, most vocational courses are either for-profit schools, with all the problems that presents, or are the purview of local community colleges, so they're already a part of higher education, and many are part of a larger 2-year Associates degree program.

It also means that potential high-fliers can no longer be supported through university, meaning that half the population is struggling with student debt and potentially some of the brightest may be deterred from going in the first place due to lack of means.
Click to expand...


That's an easy fix for any society that has the political will to do so.

Giordano said:
But what is unneeded? Is the value of a degree only definable in terms of finances? I think that education in any form adds a great deal to the individual's life and to society as a whole.
Click to expand...


Well, that depends on what you think the purpose of society is. For the right-wing elite in this country, depriving people of higher education is highly beneficial. Educated people question things, they are less likely to accept what they're told by authorities at face value, and are more likely to want to change what they see as the problems with society, and demand a higher standard of living, not to mention their civil rights.

It's in the interests of the oligarchs and demagogues to maintain a poorly-educated populace in order to maintain their own elite status. And, indeed, we are seeing that very mechanism in place and being enforced in the US right now. The religious right is fighting very hard to keep education as minimal and religiously-oriented as possible for all but their chosen elite.

An educated populace is harder to dupe, harder to enslave, and harder to manipulate. I'm all for expanding higher education, regardless of what particular field of study is involved. Right now, we as humans have the technology to begin the move into a post-scarcity economy worldwide. The only thing preventing from that from happening is ignorance, and the machinations of oligarchs who are desperate to hold on to their elitist lifestyle.
 
luchog said:
Right now, we as humans have the technology to begin the move into a post-scarcity economy worldwide. The only thing preventing from that from happening is ignorance, and the machinations of oligarchs who are desperate to hold on to their elitist lifestyle.
Click to expand...

Wow, I didn’t realize that environmental collapse was so close.
 
luchog said:
It's just like during the dotcom bubble when everyone was going for the various IT certifications, thinking they were critical and necessary, when the only people who actually cared about them were HR staff, actual department managers didn't. Mostly they only cared because it proved that you were motivated enough to stick with something and do an decent job of it.

I'd go so far as to say that a whole lot of employers aren't really interested in degrees at all anymore, they're only interested in hiring as cheaply as they can, especially for entry-level positions; and higher degrees are often a minor impediment to employment, as employers assume that they'll want to be paid more.

It's possible the "useless" degrees do have an impact, but it's a negligible one next to the more powerful market and regulatory forces at work at this time.
Click to expand...

Or, to put it in a way that is *very* common among engineers, the degree is proof that you can figure out the basics, and can be taught what you need to actually know to do the work. We had plenty of technicians working at soldering benches or doing basic measurements that could, when needed, give us some very useful ideas for designs - and we always made a point to include them in any bonuses - but that we couldn't accept as engineers because they didn't have the "required" piece of paper.

Sometimes this was due to jealousy - "I did the work, why shouldn't they?", and a few times it was government regulation, but really, much of it was that they didn't want to take years of classes and rack up debts, only to get involved in more paperwork and do less technical work. The meat of design work, they were great at.

(And going for a PhD was basically saying "I want to go into long-term research, don't hire me for anything else".)
 
The IT Certification Industry has been an unapologetic protection racket for years.

I do think one factor is in a lot of industries; engineer, medicine, and IT, are so fast changing that nobody could expect to get a degree and have it be relevant in anything but the broadest conceptual strokes for more than a few years.

I do think eventually the idea of a continuing education is going to become the norm for a lot of fields.

Hell it it's not impossible to imagine a sort of permanent work/train cycle actually becoming almost a necessity.
 
Rolfe said:
I think trying to get half the population through university is a mistake. It's impossible to do this without devaluing the value of a degree as it was when only 10% went to university - you simply can't look for the same standards if the intellectual level of your intake goes so much lower down the population spread. You also starve genuine vocational courses of the moderately bright young people they need to ensure that these necessary jobs find enough takers.

It also means that potential high-fliers can no longer be supported through university, meaning that half the population is struggling with student debt and potentially some of the brightest may be deterred from going in the first place due to lack of means.
Click to expand...
As far as I was aware the increase in those attending university is more about resetting society 's bias against generally poorer, and less connected kids but equally as intelligent not getting into university.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I do think eventually the idea of a continuing education is going to become the norm for a lot of fields.

Hell it it's not impossible to imagine a sort of permanent work/train cycle actually becoming almost a necessity.
Click to expand...


That's already the case in the medical industry, with ongoing-education requirements for most positions from MD on down requiring such by accreditation and certification bodies. It's effectively that way in the IT industry, and being out of work even a year puts a huge road-block in the way of re-employment regardless of degrees or experience. There's a saying in IT that the best way to find a job is to already have one. Ongoing education during extended periods of unemployment is a good way to remove part of that block.
 
luchog said:
This, particularly the highlighted part, smacks too much of elitism for me........
Click to expand...

What's wrong with that? What's wrong with the most academic portion of the population getting the best academic qualifications? What's wrong with making entry into university competitive, so that only the academically elite get to enter?
 
MikeG said:
What's wrong with that? What's wrong with the most academic portion of the population getting the best academic qualifications? What's wrong with making entry into university competitive, so that only the academically elite get to enter?
Click to expand...
Problem is that in the past it was not necessarily the brightest who went to university, at least now university is seen as a route for most people if they want to pursue an academic subject. (Please note not supporting the current load of policies, just pointing out what they were meant to do.)
 
luchog said:
This, particularly the highlighted part, smacks too much of elitism for me. "My degree will be worthless if too many people have them, therefore it's necessary for only a small elite to have degrees in order to maintain their elite status."

And no one has yet explained how many people having degrees "devalues" the degree. Are we talking a purely utilitarian basis, where employers now have to decide between multiple candidates with the same degree, based on their other qualifications, as opposed to having only a single elite stand out from the rest?
<snip>
Click to expand...
For more people to get a degree the standard to pass must be lowered, otherwise there would a huge failure rate. Hence a piece of paper that once showed you had a very high abilities now only shows you have ordinary abilities. So the best must now do even more work to show they are the best.
 
Darat said:
Problem is that in the past it was not necessarily the brightest who went to university.....
Click to expand...

Granted. There were certainly inequities. However, the solution of just saying "anyone who wants to can now go" is, in my view, not the correct way to deal with that issue. Before anyone lawyers that previous sentence, obviously that isn't what Blair et al said, but it is the net effect of the changes that were made.
 
Last edited:
rjh01 said:
For more people to get a degree the standard to pass must be lowered, otherwise there would a huge failure rate. Hence a piece of paper that once showed you had a very high abilities now only shows you have ordinary abilities. So the best must now do even more work to show they are the best.
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom