College for all? Experts say not necessarily

Re:College for all? Experts say not necessarily by InclinedPlane on Friday May 14, 2010 @04:33PM (#1348517)

Sadly, a 4 year degree has become more and more a requirement for a lot of jobs, regardless of talent and skills. Increasing credentialism of this sort will just lower the value of having a degree and also make it more necessary for every professional to have a 4 year degree (which is expensive even at the cheapest colleges).

None of this is good.

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Re:College for all? Experts say not necessarily by SamAtt on Friday May 14, 2010 @05:24PM (#1348657)

I think you're missing the point. I don't think anyone is against education or certification of some kind. The problem is the quality of it.

Academia is insular and has adopted the extremely broad mandate of "making better citizens" which has resulted in a lot of degree programs that are utterly useless. There was a post on HN just a few days ago from someone who was about to get a CS degree and who felt they had no idea how to actually program.

That's the problem and what this article describes is a trend in which those useless degrees are losing favor while more specialized education gains it.

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Re:College for all? Experts say not necessarily by hugh3 on Friday May 14, 2010 @06:58PM (#1348850)

Academia is insular and has adopted the extremely broad mandate of "making better citizens" which has resulted in a lot of degree programs that are utterly useless.

Perhaps, though academia has been specialising in the teaching of mostly-useless knowledge since at least the days of ancient Rome, so it's not likely to be a transient phenomenon.

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