My position is that Universities are wonderful things, for particular professions, but by and large a huge number of people are investing money in a University education for no other reason than it's what's expected of them, to work hard for degrees they will often never use or need in their careers.
Now if you plan to be a doctor, lawyer, researcher or any number of other careers, your university degree is your gateway to the next step of your career, whether it be law school, medical school, or your PhD. In these cases a university degree, and potentially even parts of its education are vital from a technical perspective. Additionally these are all relatively highly paid careers where the investment in education can be paid of relatively quickly. But what of the other degrees, and the other career paths?
The financially astute amongst you already know that one of the worst financial investments you can possibly make is a brand new car. It devalues the moment you drive it away from the dealer and progressively loses value every single day from there on out. Have you ever considered your degree with a similar critical eye? Josh Kaufman in his book The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business
, claims that if you get an MBA from even a top business school, it has a useful life of maybe two years from the day you earn it, before people care less about your MBA and begin to care more about what you've done with it.
My personal opinion is and has been for a long time, that career specific working education, is far more profitable, more apropos and more valuable in the long run than a University degree that may or may not be related to what you're doing, what's more, is cash positive investment if your time, rather than a cash negative proposal; that is to say, you get paid to work and learn in a career, but on the flipside, you pay to go to University to get your degree, which for many careers (excepting the kind of career path I mentioned above) is something of gamble as to how helpful it will be in securing future gainful employment.
The problem is (to quote Jeffery Selingo in College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students
); the three year degree has become the new GED; the four degree has become the new bachelors degree and the PhD/MBA has become the new four year degree. And all of the time, colleges continue to to chase more customers and perpetuate the issue in the educational ratings game.
There has to be a way to break this cycle, where people are valued for the skills, capabilities and qualities that they bring to the table, rather than valued by a piece of paper that tells you that they can memorise facts and regurgitate them at will better than the other five guys waiting to be interviewed in the lobby.
, claims that if you get an MBA from even a top business school, it has a useful life of maybe two years from the day you earn it, before people care less about your MBA and begin to care more about what you've done with it. My personal opinion is and has been for a long time, that career specific working education, is far more profitable, more apropos and more valuable in the long run than a University degree that may or may not be related to what you're doing, what's more, is cash positive investment if your time, rather than a cash negative proposal; that is to say, you get paid to work and learn in a career, but on the flipside, you pay to go to University to get your degree, which for many careers (excepting the kind of career path I mentioned above) is something of gamble as to how helpful it will be in securing future gainful employment.
The problem is (to quote Jeffery Selingo in College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students
); the three year degree has become the new GED; the four degree has become the new bachelors degree and the PhD/MBA has become the new four year degree. And all of the time, colleges continue to to chase more customers and perpetuate the issue in the educational ratings game.There has to be a way to break this cycle, where people are valued for the skills, capabilities and qualities that they bring to the table, rather than valued by a piece of paper that tells you that they can memorise facts and regurgitate them at will better than the other five guys waiting to be interviewed in the lobby.
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