the troubadour

Has a university degree in Australia lost its value, as graduate numbers have exploded, despite significant cost to both students and the budget.


Thanks to the uncapping of university places, allowing uni's to recruit as many students as they can fit, in order to accumulate HELP/HECS funding, actual tertiary entrance scores have plummeted, many most every person can potentially get a degree, devaluing their worth in the process.


Is it worth the time and effort considering, ever fewer are going into areas where study was undertaken in the first place. Indeed certain areas treat a degree as minatory, where this was certainly not the case a decade back.

Beoz

I have little care for degrees when hiring. For graduates its all they have so I look for the extras. Things they have done on their own back, outside the degree. I like people who take inititive.

For older peops I pretty much ignore the degree and look at experience.

Mind you, there is no degree for the jobs I hire people for.

BadgeIsBack

+1
Back im the day interests were key but seem to be in decline. I have to admit, I screen to some extent on interests to determine character..if I see soccer and basketball on a Cv I think yawn...I want to see something a bit interesting like Fencing, Skiing, climbing, playing the Violin..etc

spuddyo

We have been having this conversation as our daughter goes into year 11 next week and the end of her school years gets nearer. It appears these days that 80% of the kids are being steered towards further education and getting a degree. Back in the 70's when I was leaving school in the UK, 80% went off to work, apprenticeships, trades, banking, retail, factory work etc and only 20% went on to University to sit for a degree.

Degrees were special, young people with degrees were looked up to as being academic and were generally held in high regard. These days a Degree is just 'normal', and it doesn't seem to hold the status it had back then. My advice to my daughter is do what you want to do, a degree is not what it used to be. Live your dreams , work hard, reach out for what you want achieve. If she decides to go , or not to go to Uni, I don't mind a bit. So long as she is happy and doing her best in life that's all I care about. Travel the world, get some life experience, learn how society works - then go to Uni later if that's what you want to do. You can continue your education at any time, you are only young once.

There are a lot of people with Degrees driving Uber cars, working the check out at Woolies and washing cars for a living. Whats the point ?

GarryP

There are a LOT of junk degrees, particularly in Australia. There does seem to be qualificationitis - with people believing you need to have been 'trained' in something to be able to do it (the reverse is often true).

There is also the issue that the degrees tend to get dumbed down, both to increase the number of graduates, and to make it easier to teach. For instance, look at this syllabus for 'Physics' from the University of Melbourne (a member of the gang of 8 even)

Physics — Bachelor of Science

FFS, they don't do special relativity to the end of the second year, and don't even touch general ever. We did special in the first term of the first year, and even then the first year was consider half a catching up year. No solid state, little QM, no cosmology, little Maxwell. That course is totally noddy, I hate to think what the course from a university further down the list is like.

As such a degree is still worth doing - but generally only to get the piece of paper to tick the box - and as cheaply as possible. What's taught could easily be picked up from books, etc. - “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.”

At the same time you can make universities worthwhile by the other bits, the bits around the edges. The networking, the learning to live as an adult away from home, the opportunities to try out new things with people who are also doing the same. In short, to make the experience worthwhile, you need to learn to hustle before you go.

Personally I'd say a degree should be 'off to the side' from doing something real for a career, particularly on the entrepreneurial side. And if you really want a career in academia - you'd need to be going to a proper university, elsewhere.

the troubadour

spuddyo. Exactly. There was a time when a degree stood for something. With government cutbacks in funding the uni's were of course obliged to make up the short fall. Hence the need to teach as many students as possible in order to accumulate fees through the governments Help/Hecs schemes as well as a huge number of international students.


I believe you have given sound advise to your daughter. Go out and see the world. Experience life. I wonder if so called education can even hold us back? I mean make us less adventurous and creative in experimentation. With conveyor belt education in regards to churning them out in great numbers over recent times, can really be called education?

BadgeIsBack

Agree with you both. I think ultimately a Tier 1 place is better than a middling place (ahem).

I was under the impression that the increase in placements was due to universities adopting business models and not due to lack of funding: that the unis could barely contain their excitement..

As a matter of fact, I am very impressed with the University of Melbourne's brightest and infact that cohort go along way to satisfying me that the latest generation will be fine.. (some of them anyhow).

BadgeIsBack

Was going to say that a rising tide lifts all ships (everyone goes to Uni) but qualitatively there is surely some decline.

the troubadour

Well the 'business model' was enforced on universities in late nineties. This was due to reduced funding and a replacement of academics with managers running on lines of more better and over haul of the system to suit. This followed a massive expansion of overseas students, plus a decline in content and quality.


Universities became something akin to visa factories in instances, which could be witnessed when government attempted to 'tighten up' with regards to getting PR after degree. The numbers declined.


As such less places for home students, as not as profitable. The limited English ability another factor among a number of overseas students.So you are correct run on business lines, but hardly for the better.


Just how much a degree has declined in value is an open discussion and depends on which academic you speak to.

the troubadour

Alternatively a falling tide lowers all ships until their hulls sit firmly on dry ground.

quiltman

So true! In my day a person with a degree was looked upon as having been taught to think, evaluate and come to a decision based on the facts, plus being able to work/study on their own and to a deadline. you had to be able to read, write and add up as well! I despair for the kids with most modern degrees as they'll never get a job easily using it since there are too many others with the same qualifications - or not, as the case may be. I never went to Uni even though I made the grade. Instead like millions of others I took an apprenticeship with the local Electricity Board who paid me to go to technical college and get an HND,(It's now one of the so called Universities) then employed me for many years. I just wish there were a lot more apprenticeships/training schemes available for the youth of today.

the troubadour

I'm afraid there is less incentive for apprenticeships these days. Far more cost efficient and/or easier to bring in an already skilled, ready to go, wiling to please, visa applicant.

BadgeIsBack

...and the overall calibre of the person meant you had a self-starter and person of all-round character. People were rejected from university places if they simply weren't university material - hence why even a few 'A' levels were still good enough for entries in many programmes - (it was no disaster) and some of these candidates would catch up in later life. A degree also meant that there was a standard of sorts - now you meet people who went to 'uni' and you are left wondering if they did any tertiary study at all.

Hence grads got all the really plum roles - because they were the cream of the crop, or were in a stream where they got that chance.

My advice to my kids is consider what you really want to do. A mickey mouse degree and a debt might be a mistake unless it forms the building blocks of something else. I know sons of professional men who have deliberately gone towards TAFE or a more vocational route than start a course that won't help them.

Beoz

Another complete load of nonsense.

A first year apprentice, say plumber, is paid two thirds of the minimum wage. If you hire from abroad, you are paying more in wages plus the hire/visa cost.

Why do you write such nonsense?

the troubadour

The only reason I can begin to imagine to would consider, something well documented, as it is too close to home.


Please explain why the number of apprenticeships have declined so rapidly over the past decade plus? Regardless of initial cost (wages lower) there are far more considerations. A lot of business prefers a hands on fully qualified, ready to contribute fully from day one, especially if on a 457 that can be terminated with the employee dependant largely on keeping on 'the good side' of their employer.


I know you are not from here, but before in future you call a post of mine 'nonsense' you may reflect a little deeper , your limitations clearly evident into work place behaviour though hardly restricted to that subject alone.