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Universities should be more than toll gates

(www.waliddib.com)
140 points wdib | 2 comments | 21 Sep 25 07:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Eddy_Viscosity2 ◴[21 Sep 25 12:07 UTC] No.45322003[source]▶
Makes me think of the "The purpose of a system is what it does" axiom. Universities were always about credentials whether professional or just to indicate social class. They can at the same time be places of learning, and many still are in some disciplines.

The problem is that value of the credential is now worth more (to most people) than the value of the learning/knowledge. So universities adapted to the that model. Its more profitable and university presidents can now earn millions of dollars, further intrenching the problem as it now attracts exactly the kind of people into those positions who only care about money (and themselves).

The true blame for this situation, (IMHO), are the employers across the economy who require applicants have 'university degrees' for jobs that in no way need those skillsets. Bullshit requirements then led to the demand for bullshit degrees which the universities changed to supply.

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Lu2025 ◴[21 Sep 25 12:56 UTC] No.45322304[source]▶
> employers across the economy who require applicants have 'university degrees'

Somebody from HR admitted to me that they often do it to simply trim the applicant pool to a more manageable size.

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1. Eddy_Viscosity2 ◴[21 Sep 25 13:34 UTC] No.45322590[source]▶
This is true across literally millions of HR people across the whole country. Every one trying to make their job a little bit easier and thus creating an externality with the monstrous negative effect on the entire education system and years of people lives pursuing pointless degrees at great cost and debt that may take some lifetimes to pay off. Absolute madness.
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2. skeeter2020 ◴[21 Sep 25 15:11 UTC] No.45323454[source]▶
>> pursuing pointless degrees at great cost and debt

Maybe if you require a liberal arts degree and immediately cut someone who's just "well read" but this is not my experience in technical and engineering focused roles.