This bothers me does it worry you?

Question

In the UK we have a lot of universities that offer qualifications that are called degrees but that are too easy to be of any interest to anyone.  What worries me is the effect of the level of debt on people basically conned into thinking that these degrees will help them get a graduate level job when if fact they won't.

There has been a recent example of someone with a degree from one of these low level universities who is unemployed because they can't get a graduate level job but of course that degree from that university is never going to do that and there are lots of degrees from lots of universities like this.

Laurie · Accepted Answer

It is not the universities' responsibility to make sure that people can get a job in every field of study they offer.
It is the student's responsibility to survey potential job/jobs, research those jobs, and to pick a course of study that will qualify him for a specific job that has both an optimistic employment outlook and a decent salary.
If somebody wants to spend their time and money getting a degree in Greek mythology... that is their right. The fact that they cannot, afterward, find a job is their responsibility.

Bob B · Answer

This doesn't particularly bother me.

The way I see it, it just demonstrates what I, any anyone else, already knew (or should have known) to begin with: if you aren't sensible, don't research your degree, where it leads, what the job market is like, and so forth, you're setting yourself up for disaster. I remember answering a question here a few months ago, from some kid who was a freshman in a small liberal arts college, majoring in "classics", so he was doing all these Latin and Greek classes. I advised him in my answer to reconsider that one. Who knows if he did or not, but that's the sort of things people do.

Anyway, a degree is not an automatic guarantee of a job. Some are more useful in terms of employment than others, and ultimately, it's up to you to do your research there. For instance, a degree in classics isn't going to get you very far. On the other hand, if you honestly want to tell the thousands of engineers, lawyers, registered nurses, or other professionals out there that their degree didn't help, you're going to need to re-think that one. If you make the grade for a medical degree, you're effectively guaranteed employment for the rest of your life unless you do something really, really stupid (the unemployment rate among doctors is well below 1%).

In many other fields, a degree is a must to get a job, so it certainly helps- although again, it's not just the degree. If you don't have a good personality, don't network, don't do proper job-searching, and so forth, then your degree won't save you.

I think of degrees as like tools in my toolbox- if you get the right one for what you want to do, knowing what you plan to do with it, do what you're supposed to, and so forth, it will help you do the job. Buying something random off the shelf without thinking about what you'll do with it is unlikely to help.

Not Really a Doctor · Answer

Online degrees are a huge industry in the US and probably worldwide, fooling people into thinking that studying something exclusively on the internet will get them into a good paying career.  In the real world, employers are not looking for someone from a degree from the University of Phoenix.  Meantime, the students get deep in debt and spend a lot out of pocket to find their school has been forced out of business.

Mathias · Answer

We have a couple degrees like that here in the United States, and it definitely is worrisome. Such degrees should probably just be made a smaller part of more useful, related degrees.

Mark big sky boat man · Answer

A fool and their money....

This bothers me does it worry you?

5 Answers