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Has the decline of knowledge work begun?

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388 points pseudolus | 2 comments | 25 Mar 25 17:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.454s | source
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fullshark ◴[25 Mar 25 17:21 UTC] No.43473662[source]▶
Bachelor Degrees need a complete rethink, it was basically modified finishing school for rich capital owners, needing to make their children of proper class before they could take over their businesses.

It then became a vocational degree for the working class, despite being completely detached from useful skills for a wide swathes of degrees. The only value is that you could talk the talk and become a member of the professional managerial class if you impressed the right hiring committee/individual.

In spite of this, we decided the working class should take out crippling loans to pay for this degree, and be in debt for the rest of their working life.

It's not sustainable, and just forgiving the debt only will make it all more expensive and less aligned with actual results we desire (useful workers).

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KPGv2 ◴[26 Mar 25 18:05 UTC] No.43484968[source]▶
> despite being completely detached from useful skills for a wide swathes of degrees

It's a nice suggestion, but it's one that isn't supported by the evidence. Even controlling for other factors, a college degree makes more productive workers. And given that it's controlling for other factors, "selection bias" becomes a hard argument to make. STEMbros get real arrogant about their degrees (I have one; I've seen it first hand), but like it or not the person with an English degree still learned a lot of useful skills.

Going to uni to major in a specific career is how you get screwed when available careers change.

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HPsquared ◴[26 Mar 25 18:17 UTC] No.43485139[source]▶
I don't think there is any doubt spending 4 years studying a subject will increase skills in some areas. The question is whether the benefits are worth the cost (and that question applies both to the individual student and society as a whole).

Remember the cost of all this is absolutely massive. Mostly the 4 years of lost time.

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18766hahsbc767 ◴[26 Mar 25 18:30 UTC] No.43485282[source]▶
It doesn't have to be though. In Europe the vast majority of people attend public universities that don't require having to end up with a degree and crippling debt.

I left uni almost 20 years ago, but one year of my tuition was about 1000USD at the time, something I could easily afford with a part time job. I'm sure the cost is higher now, but I would have thought it is still orders of magnitude cheaper than in the UK or the US. Germany subsidizes university tuition fees for a huge percentage of students, and adds a monthly stipend for expenses and free public transport while enrolled in uni.

Your point is valid, challenging the worth/cost of higher education. But I think it is the cost part what is broken in some parts of the world, not necessarily the worth part.

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nradov ◴[27 Mar 25 03:13 UTC] No.43490044[source]▶
Most European public universities have low tuition because taxpayers are subsidizing them. This can only work if the number of students is kept relatively low. You can't have both cheap tuition and widespread access to higher education. The math doesn't work.

It will also be interesting to see what happens now that Europe has to get real about defense spending instead of freeloading on US security guarantees. Since defense spending is going up there's going to be a lot of political pressure to cut higher education.

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1. lodovic ◴[27 Mar 25 10:10 UTC] No.43491962[source]▶
What supports your assertion that low tuition fees limit student numbers in Europe? This would only apply to non-EU students. I could very well claim the opposite, that high tuition fees limit student numbers in the US and make higher education out of reach for most.
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2. nradov ◴[27 Mar 25 13:01 UTC] No.43493154[source]▶
The money has to come from somewhere. Tuition doesn't cover the cost of operating those European public universities. Most of the cost is borne by taxpayers. More students would thus mean higher taxes.

To an extent this also applies in the USA. Public universities in most states have relatively low tuition (although still higher than their European equivalents) for in-state students. But they are unable to meet market demand, so many students take out loans to pay tuition at lower-tier private universities.