“We don’t need formal schooling beyond middle school because everyone can learn job skills as a child, and then self-study graduate level material from books and youtube and do independent PhD-level research with no funding, structure, or support.”
This argument strongly reminds me of the guy I met who claimed nobody needs a paid job because they can just scavenge free food from restaurant garbage bins.
I wasn't answering the question; I was asking it.
It is still clearly the case the university has a role. I just do not think we have caught up to how well employers can train their employees; how well even highly advanced skills can be acquired; how very very recent advancements (youtube, etc.) can provide a good-quality education; and so on.
In an age where meaningful professional development can be made without the university, there is a serious question to be asked: how many will meaningfully benefit from the university system? (And: how many are meaningfully harmed?).
The answer, in both cases, is surely: some.
A lot of those have got very good, and we have to ask ourselves what value we add to the learning process. It's still something we're discussing, and it's definitely led us to alter how we think about training (and out of our safe areas!)
Consider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4 or anything of this kind.
And ask: what is David doing as the narrator (of his own thought process) ?
I think many people do enjoy university as an environment where like minded people are there to share different ideas. Just as a zoom meeting is no replacement for real meeting, i don't think sitting through MIT youtube channels is the same as actually attending MIT.
There's an increasingly large number of second tier school admins that are making the opposite bet (more online programs, wider admission pool, commuter and all-online certificates). My bet is that in the next 20 years we'll see an even bigger gap between the online crowd and the few in-person institutions that will remain.
Employers can sponsor degrees, it's still efficient to have specialised educators.
The issue here is that if students fund their own education, they have "skin in the game", and don't rely on employers to gatekeep these roles.
That said, maybe an education tied to an actual job offer would be best; there are too many un-economic degrees given to 18yos - it might be best if the risk in an education was only put on an individual who was already older and somewhat financially secure.
Though, I'm sure the need for good friends and connections could be provided in other ways whilst studying. All things are subject to change and needs will be met if they're important enough.
I started programming as a child, and used this irc-gained knowledge and self-study to earn money till c. 26.
I studied physics during. Much of what I make money with now was gained via MIT/Stanford/et al. initially on iTunes U, and latterly on youtube -- both during my apparent "attendance" at university; and for years afterwards.
It would have been entirely possible for me to skip my entire university experience and still have the postgrad level of knowledge I have now: as almost all of it was gained via free lecture courses.
You might say I'm cheating here: the content is still provided by some universities. Sure.
The question remains whether even for the very high end, this process needs years at university; and whether all of them need to repeat it. Let alone how meaningless the process is on the low-end.
I have been offered a PhD in a highly technical area (which I declined) -- and I can assure you nearly everything which landed me in that position had little to do with whatever my university "did". I barely attended.