In reply to Jon Stewart:
> (In reply to MG)
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> The reason I think these aspects are overstated is that I don't think that the causal relationship has been shown - what would these graduates be like without the university education? Think about a person with the same background and personality type as their peers who went to university, but who got a job instead. I meet these people from time to time, and they never seem intellectually or socially naive to me. They seem exactly the same as the people who did go to university!
I'd agree on this one. I'm from the 'other side', went to a somewhat indifferent comp that sucked any interest whatsoever out of subjects, and as a consequence couldn't wait to get out of education. At 16 I had no problem passing the half dozen O levels at Grade C that would have put me on the FE route, but I was bored to tears so left and did the ONC/HNC route via day release. (I think this has been all but done away with now?).
> You say that employers value these skills, and I'm sure you're right. But that only tells me that they too believe something entirely unproven: that it was the university education that endowed the candidates with these skills. They probably don't even interview candidates without degrees, and if they did, they'd be more likely to find people who have a different background and skill-set to begin with and who consequently didn't go to university.
That was certainly true in the past, you found yourself working with new graduates who seemed very immature and clueless, (to be fair they probably weren't that bad, but as you'd been working for 3 or 4 years before they left Uni that was the perception). There was certainly a lot of resentment around as people who could easily have done the job were sidelined by the graduate intake.
Now though I think employers want a graduate for any job, regardless of need. What was an 'office junior' type role that needed 2 'O' levels has now morphed into a graduate post as only a degree can provide the 'skillsets needed for a knowledge based economy'. That's devalued the degree in terms of earning potential, and also in terms of social capital.
> As for mixing with all these really great people who think differently, I think the almost the opposite is true. When I went to university, I met a load of people who were exactly like me in terms of background and the way they thought. I hung out with a bunch of clever middle class kids who liked clubbing and dance music and had left-wing social values, just like me - a stimulating melting pot of ideas and perspectives it was not.
That's how I saw it from the 'other side'. My contemporaries who went to Uni seemed to be either a very small number of wannabe revolutionaries who would change the would, (but didn't), or a much larger number of frankly irritating middle class kids with an overweening sense of entitlement. On reflection I was probably being grossly unfair in pidgeonholing them like that, but I don't think I missed much not being in their presence.
> I guess I had a good time, and I got a good degree, but I would have been better off growing up (i.e. taking all those drugs) while I was in a low-responsibility job and coming back to education when I was more mature. Then I would have entered the job market with a track record of holding down a job, and a degree relevant to what I wanted to do with my career.
I think that's a very valid point. Taking a degree in my mid to late 20's would have been a more attractive proposition. To me it just seemed like staying on at school for far too long. Plus I got to do the drugs and partying whlist earning a wage..
> And I don't think I would have missed out at all on the 'space to experiment and develop soft skills' or whatever you want to call it.
That is one thing that does really hack me off about recent graduates;
"I can like do all this critical thinking and I've got all these special skills and shit." No you can't and no you haven't, at least not measurably more than anyone else who isn't a total idiot. The rest of the population weren't placed in suspended animation and lobotomised while you went on the piss for 3 years..