Whats the point of higher education?

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If you don't plan on being a doctor,teacher or lawyer or anything similar would higher Education be a scam?
I think it is.
People with a college a masters degree can still have trouble finding work. You still have to have a job interview.
Right now I owe money to a university and even when I am dead it probably wont be paid off.
We live in a society that brainwashes us into going to a university. If we don't we get fed lies about being a failure.
Does anyone else think higher education is a scam?
I cant wait for the system to crash. That will be a great day.

Depends on what you want to go into. There are so many courses in college that aren't offered at your average high school. Say you want to go into math or science. Unless you're a master at self-studying math and science, subjects like neuroscience, set theory, biochemistry, and quantum physics can be out of your reach unless you go to college. If I want to get a decent job requiring heavy-duty knowledge, high school courses sure as hell don't suffice.

Awwwwe your probably right about that. I'm sacred of ending up in your situation so I haven't gone.
I want to do something practical and hands on like "working with resin/plastics", but they don't offer much. If we didn't let china do the manufacturing we could be better off. Except society would have to change in away that would make more middle class and less rich/poor. The rich are the ones who seem to have a problem with that though.

School is one place I feel comfortable because the rules are so exact. I know how to act and when to act. In high school I was constantly teased and bullied. My first ear in college was miserable. then I transferred to a more liberal college and learned so much, Now I 've gone back to grad school after several years and am mostly enjying it. I wish it were more open to my weird needs but it does pretty good. There ar ea few other aspies here but I don't think theyy realize it .

In today's economy, job hunters need multiple degrees to get a job. I wish could get a job with one degree!

I'm going to culinary school in January and did some research. A chef makes just as much money as some college graduates.
It is easier to find a culinary job than most jobs that require a college degree.
Higher education is not for everybody and I wish they would tell high school students that.
It is hard to understand why learning a trade is looked down upon by society.

I am not trying to discourage people from getting a higher education. I hope it will work out for you
People should know that college is not for everyone.
I really wanted to get a degree in anthropology,humanities or library science but college was very depressing for me.

I definitely love learning and higher education, I have an MBA and a B Comm, and a couple of IT certifications, but as an Aspie in the corporate world, the politics were definitely mean and it was filled by people who implicitly didn't give a s**t if I had a neurological challenge.

Unfortunately, I have heard flippant remarks from NTs at work about degrees or certifications. Like to the effect of "I don't care what theory you learned about technology or business, if you can't apply anything, you're useless." or "only experience matters, certificates are just a wall decoration." those really upset me.

The worst was I had a boss once who openly declared her contempt for people with degrees, she said "I once had somebody working for me who had a law degree, was a chartered accountant, and an MBA. But he couldn't communicate clearly with anyone, and was always making erroneous judgements and assumptions when dealing with people. So at the end of the day, and I'm saying this for your benefit, it doesn't matter how many degrees or certificates you have, if you can't interact with people successfully, you're bound to fail."

That was a HUGE insult b/c she was saying it to me as if it was something I didn't already know. Basically being a hypocrite by talking down to me and telling me that I have to communicate in an appropriate way with people. I was skeptical that this multi-degree person even existed, I believe she just invented him to "scare" me or make a point obliquely.

One of my favorite jokes, when I hear that an acquaintance is going to college for any liberal arts BA, goes like this:

Me: So, what are you going to college for?
Student: Ummm....Anthropology...
Me: No, by "what for" I mean more like, "why bother?"

Some things like medicine or engineering, yes: go to university. But most of the rest of the majors, you're really not going to learn what you're studying. What you are learning is how to show up on time, wear the right clothes, obey a professor who is incompetent that you despise, get placed in random groups and force yourself to work with them, prepare a resentation on time. You are not expected to remember any of the subjects you learn. You are expected to remember and master the tertiary skills, and then move on.

Those are the skills you need for corporate business environment. They want you to show up on time, be "presentable," not argue with your boss, put together a presentation on time and then forget about it and move on. If you have a BA, it means you have the basic skills needed to be a cubicle worker.

And yeah, a lot of people get shoved into college because it's the societal standard for accomplishment. Many of them would be happier in trade school, learning how to weld or make cabinetry or electrical or carpentry. People I know that went to Uni tend to be miserable, where people I know that went to trade school tend to make less money, but be a lot happier. A lot happier.

I have an Accounting degree & a MS in Finance and for all intents & purposes I am not employable . I have started to get help for my problems but so far I have just been taking Prozac for a few months up to 40MG a day. I really have no motivation after being on countless interviews and just being told that I was a viable candidate but they went with someone 'stronger' or I had many temp jobs that ended after the first few days for either no reason or a very vague reason.

Higher education is NOT a scam --- don't get me wrong but it only really helps you get your foot in the door for your 1st job, then your work history or what you do after college is the only thing that counts.

That's a really good joke.
When I went to school I was working toward a degree in mass communication and then I changed my major to fine art.
When I tried to get a Major in art it made me realize that there is no point in going to school for art.
I could not stand my professors. The were very arrogant and tried to brainwash the students.
Many people believed everything the professors said. I refused to take politics advice from a liberal arts professor.

@artrat Did you make your DP/avatar? by any chance

No, It is by an English street artist named banksy. I did make the icon with photo editing software.

Nice edit I saw it online once before. I thought you might have done it since you said you'd gone to school for art and the pic looked different than the original. I love to photograph the street art in my city. I also live close to Toronto there's some really cool stuff there. The edit is really good it looks like it'd be a nice print.

It not only depends on what you go into, but who you know. People with good degrees nowadays are having problems finding work, unless they network just right anyway. I had an example of that somewhere but no longer no where to look for it.


And it is a scam nowadays. I was looking in the job ads a while back and saw an ad for someone with a bachelors in accounting. The job paid $10 an hour but would help the employee get their visa or papers or whatever it's called.


If it wasn't for the extreme cost of a degree, it would not be so bad. Maybe if you left college with $10,000 in debt and that debt never increased even when you weren't able to find work. But as it stands it is a rip off. I was watching a video a while back where this lady had graduated with a dental PHD or whatever it is. She couldn't even afford to pay her monthly payments off and IIRC she lost her med license for defaulting.

That's another issue. If you default on a loan you can many times lose the right to practice your profession.

So, yeah, I think for most it is or will soon be a rip off.

Actually in some trades you can make a LOT of money. Plumbing is one. Although it must be mentioned that not everyone is physically suited for a trade.

The profit in trades is somewhat misleading. I had a roomate that was a handyman...plumber carpenter, general remodeling. He made $25 an hour, but there was a deap period in the winter where he only worked 10 hours a week, and a lot of the money he made went into ammassing and maintaining his tools and his work truck.

Still, he was happy as pie.