The Cult of University, Ctd Barack Obama

In the video above and here, Obama lays into the cult of university. He says:

"The problem is that a lot of young people no longer see trades and skilled manufacturing as a viable career. But I promise you, folks can earn a lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree."

Barack Obama has previously entered the debate on law school, see here. A PhD student objected to Obama here. As I noted previously here:

"Attending 8 hours of lectures per week in an arts/humanities/social 'science' course is a waste of £27,000 except for the academically gifted."

Previous posts on the cult of university here, here, here and here. Also with The Sunday Times, apprenticeships and comments from young people here, and here on the effect of bringing university to the masses. In the Huffington Post here.

Jenni Russell - Young people spent 13 years listening to a Labour government telling them that university is the key to a better life. The exhortations have shaped reality.

In 2011 Jenni Russell (@jennirsl) wrote in The Guardian here:

"[Young people have] spent 13 of the past 14 years listening to a Labour government telling them that university is the key to a better life. The exhortations have shaped reality. With almost half the age group going on to higher education, anyone who doesn't do so risks being labelled as below average, however unjust that might be. A degree might not be worth what it used to be now that so many people have them. For anyone who is ambitious, though, not having one has become a handicap that needs to be explained away."

She finished by saying:

"We have spent the past 10 days agonising about how to give the most desperate young people hope in their futures and a stake in society. This week we are turning around to those who have worked diligently and telling them: sorry, we know it's tough out there, and the good jobs don't exist in any quantity, but we're not prepared to develop you any further – you're on your own. It's a foolish, short-sighted, rotten way to be running either the country or the education system."

On a side but related note, the skills minister Matthew Hancock recently said in an article, 'Parents must drop 'sniffy' attitude to apprenticeships, leading headmistress says':

"Concentrating only on academic training to the exclusion of technical training was a big mistake."

Jenni Russell in full here. In a blog post here I wrote that a Sunday Times poll found that in many universities are more interested in research than their students. My previous post on Jenni Russell here and here. Previous posts in The Cult of University series here, here university here, here, here, on the University Neurosis here, on The Legally Blonde complex here and also a piece here. Also on the Huffington Post here. My blog post on YouGov who found that employers have found graduates non-work-ready, here. My blog posthere where a Sunday Times poll found that students are critical of university teaching standard and that universities are more interested in research than teaching students.

Jenni Russell - 'Some universities teach and some do not'

Jenni Russell (@jennirsl) wrote in The Times:

"We must throw a spotlight on those institutions where students can get away with little work... [the] mass of words and numbers avoids the hidden truth about university courses; that a few offer a terrific, demanding education while many others are content to allow students to drift through — in a three-year haze. 

Occasionally that is obvious. Everyone expects medicine at Oxford to be more gruelling than event management at a new university. For a majority of courses, though, it is impossible to understand from descriptions just how much study is involved. Hundreds of thousands of students are miserably ill-served as a result. 

A tiny think-tank, the Higher Education Policy Institute, collaborated with Which? magazine last summer to research the student experience. In a survey that consulted almost 40,000 students over two years, it discovered that, on average, they work only three-quarters of the hours that ministers assumed they did. The number of hours per week that law students put in varied from 21 at some universities to 47 at others. Medicine, which one might assume was tough everywhere, varied from 32 to 50. Maths and computer courses required an average of 23 hours a week at the least demanding universities and 44 at the toughest."

The Cult of Univeristy, Ctd One in ten school leavers went to university 30 years ago; now almost half do

Jenni Russell wrote an article in The Times here, 'New graduates - just do the maths and weep' and said:

"Only one in ten school leavers went to university 30 years ago; now almost half do. New research by Malcolm Brynin at Essex University confirms that the graduate premium is declining. It fell by almost a third in the 15 years after 1993. The reward for being a graduate has dropped away, but paradoxically more employers are demanding graduate qualifications. A degree is now a necessity if you hope to avoid a badly paid job, but it no longer guarantees a well paid one."

On Northern Ireland, Patrick Murphy cut through the euphemism and obfuscation when he said in The Irish News that:

"[Northern Ireland universities are not remotely close to being the best in Ireland, never mind the world."

The Cult of University, Ctd Science versus arts students

The point made in the last post in The Cult of University series here, was that attending 8 hours of lectures per week in an arts/humanities/social 'science' course is a waste of £27,000, except for the academically gifted. Carola Binney (@carolabinney) said in The Spectator here:

"I [an arts student] have three-and-a-half contact hours a week. Two of these are just ‘advisable’, and are sacrificed to essay crises with some regularity... Us Arts students have to decide to work. We have to get ourselves up, preferably in the morning. We have to choose to do today what we could do at 2am tomorrow. We have to turn down a pub trip in favour of an evening alone with our books. Hungover and exhausted, who wouldn’t rather sit watching acid drip into alkaline for a couple of hours, rather than trawling through Asser’s Life of King Alfred."

I want to ask again: What average 18,19, 20 or 21 year old is going to construct an effective learning curriculum around a 3-8 hour week of lectures and tutorials? From my own personal experience, not many. This is where the self-directed drinks curriculum takes precedence, as per By my mind, this is a waste an inefficient allocation of human potential.

Dale J. Stephens said here:

"I enrolled into college... However any idealism was quickly squashed. For the most part, people weren't there to learn - they were there to party, and hangovers permitting, learn something along the way. I started asking questions." 

Previous posts in The Cult of University series here, here university here, here, here, on the University Neurosis here, on The Legally Blonde complex here and also a piece here. Also on the Huffington Post here.

My blog post on YouGov who found that employers have found graduates non-work-ready, here. My blog post here where a Sunday Times poll found that students are critical of university teaching standard and that universities are more interested in research than teaching students.

The Cult of University, Ctd

As a commenter wrote in response to an article in the Financial Times here:

"Attending 8 hours of lectures per week in an arts/humanities/social 'science' course is a waste of £27,000 except for the academically gifted."

That's the point I've made many times. What 18, 19 or 20 year old student is in the way minded to complete 200 page reading lists and use their own initiative to effectively structure their week around 8 hours of lectures? Not many. I wasn't able to. The average 18, 19, 20 or 21 year old needs structure, guidance and routine.

The 8 hour lecture model undoubtedly works for some, especially the academically minded. But this model cannot work for the majority of young people.

The cult of university, Ctd

Hilary French, headmistress of Central Newcastle High School wants school leavers to shift their fixed gazed from university and towards industry. She has said she wants a "shift of focus away from university as the automatic first choice next step for sixthformers and a turn instead to employment." She further said:

"I'd like to challenge independent schools heads to embrace this. Parents too. There is huge potential in employer training courses and the new calibre of apprenticeships emerging. We must not be sniffy about them. Yes, at the moment we may associate apprenticeships with lower-level vocational training, but this need not be the case." 

Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council spoke to the same effect. Calling for more work-based training he said:

"University is not always the best route to fulfilling job or maximising your job prospects."

The 18 year Amina Tagari from Preston has opted for an employer-sponsored training scheme as opposed to university. She explained her logic: 

"Most of my friends went to university - they sit in classes taking notes whereas I feel I am getting experience as well as learning. I will be more employable as a result."

Another young person, Nikki Cusworth (23) took an apprenticeship over a degree after the experience of the interview process for the apprenticeship. She said:

"At the interview, the practical experience I would gain blew me away. I decided I was willing to a HND through the scheme rather than an honours degree because the skills would be such an asset in my career."

My previous blog post in the cult of university series here featured another 18 year old who opted out of university. Thomas Gunning explained his decision to take an apprenticeship with PWC over university:

"I would have left university around £60,000 in debt. If I had done the degree, I would still have to complete an accountancy qualification after that. This way I am ahead of the game."

The skills minister Matthew Hancock has admitted that the elevation of academic learning to the position of par excellence has damaged the workforce. He said:

"Apprenticeships are a crucial part of addressing Britain's skills gap - concentrating only on academic training to the exclusion of technical training was a big mistake."

The reporters Sian Griffiths and Kathryn Cooper reported that the number of high level apprenticeships is small but growing. From 1,500 in 2009 to roughly 5,300 in this year. Full report in the Sunday Times, 'Top head urges schoolgirls to jet into job' here. Previous posts on the cult of university here, here, here and here.

Legally Blonde - Why everyone wants to go to Law School

 

The cultural myth endures. Andrew Sullivan provides the analysis here. Girl says her law mentor went to law school after being inspired by Legally Blonde. The same happened with a girl in Belfast here. Here's what some of Andrew Sullivan's commenters have said: 

"I agree that students need more practical experience. The ABA is definitely run by people with some old-fashioned thinking, so that organization needs a shake-up. The number of people who go to law school who really shouldn’t is also a problem... The bar exam is just institutionalized hazing and in no way reflects whether someone is qualified to practice law."

A commenter from an earlier Dish post here: 

"But it’s long been a byword among young lawyers that an extraordinarily high percentage of instruction has been irrelevant to the actual practice of law, unless you take very seriously such chestnuts as the critical importance of learning to “think like a lawyer.” For one thing, an awful lot of law students, in my experience, have been “thinking like a lawyer” since about the third grade, which made them very unpopular children. More importantly, the cult of legal education seems to depend on the perpetuation of what amounts to an intellectual hazing system, where the student’s tolerance for tedious content, arbitrary testing, and self-imposed pressure is presumably preparation for the agonies of being on the low end of the professional totem pole for years."

The Cult of University, Ctd

I recently wrote an open word of warning to GCSE and A-Level students considering going to university. The message was simple: think for yourself. Engage your critical faculties and make an informed choice. Absolutely do not opt for university on the altogether and very vague notion that university is a ticket to prosperity. Because a degree absolutely is not.

Future Talent tweeted and posted the article on their Facebook and gave the following response:

The only point we disagree with is the statement - "A good apprenticeship is better than a poor degree..." In the growing market of apprenticeships, very often a good apprenticeship is just as strong as a good degree.

I actually agree with this and am a settled advocate of employer-led project learning which produces work ready graduates who are at symmetry with the market on both informational and skills terms.

Chris Dillow writing here also made an interested contribution to the debate and did so without meaning to, for he was actually writing about Jamie Oliver and free will in a post entitled, 'Limits To Agency.'' But his analysis applies readily to this topic. He said:

"There's not much agency involved when an Etonian goes to Oxford and thence to politics or the City: As Owen Jones rightly wrote, David Cameron is also "a prisoner of his background."

 And that's it. The middle-classes and socially aspirational often don't act with agency when they go to university. It is the duty of their background.

The University Neurosis

Jeremy Paxman recently said on an episode of Newsnight, "The middle-classes are always going to want to go to university." A decision not to do a degree can be seen as the ultimate abomination, the total apostasy, the original sin. So deeply lodged is the university myth in popular psyche that it borders on a neurosis. However minds are changing among the young, and this can only be a good thing.

Harry Bird, 18, who recent sat his A-levels was featured in the Sunday Times in a story by the title, 'Boy Wonders.' The feature by the education correspondent Sian Groffiths, was on how more and more male teens are opting out of the default university pathway. Harry Bird said of his decision not to go to university:

"The education system is way too focused on going to university. My school never talked about doing an apprenticeship but I saw an advert, applied, and luckily I got through. My head of sixth form wanted me to go to university, but my economics teacher supported my decision.

Why would I want to go to saddle myself with £40,000 of debt? I'm working at Waitrose this summer and I'm alongside people who have degrees who are stacking shelves. What a waste of time that was for them. Now they're in loads of debt and struggling to pay it off."