[wyqydsyq]

While it's clear many university institutes and projects have benefited the wider public, I think he was specifically referring to the value of university to an individual, for most people (excepting those who are studying sciences to enter a specific niche field where they wouldn't be able to pick up the necessary skills anywhere else) university is indeed a waste of time and money. I'm a 22 year old developer based in Australia, I've been working in the web industry full time since I was 18 and been earning money all along. Yet I have multiple friends who did CS etc. at uni and despite having the formal qualifications I lack, they're earning less than me and have a good 10 years of paying off their education debt before they can actually use their earnings beyond getting by.

[gradstudent]

> I'm a 22 year old developer based in Australia, I've been working in the web industry full time since I was 18 and been earning money all along.

You're conflating Comp Sci with programming. I think it's pretty clear you don't need CS to be a productive developer, especially if the kind of work you're interested in doing involves building small to medium size websites and CRUD apps using other people's libraries and frameworks. Try to go beyond that however and you will quickly find out why so many people value a formal education.

[wyqydsyq]

Well yeah, I'm certainly only doing high-level stuff, if I wanted to do low level systems programming, OS/language design or anything with hardware at a lower level than whatever APIs existing drivers provide then a CS degree would certainly come in handy.

I was more getting at the fact that for probably the majority of people who go to university, they're pretty much wasting their time and money because unless they're looking to do something that can't be self-taught or learned on-the-job, they could be gaining the same skills (and maybe even getting paid for it) without putting themselves in debt that they'll spend a decade or more paying off.

For example, all the lessons capote claims to have learned doing CS at uni, I learned on the job while getting paid for it.

I have no doubt that a uni education would benefit anyone, I'm just saying that I think for the vast majority of people going to uni, the costs they're ultimately paying don't outweigh the benefits they gain, unless they're going to uni to enter a high paying field which requires a degree to enter the industry at all such as law or medicine. Unless the career you want absolutely requires a degree, you probably don't need one.

[personjerry]

You say "niche field" but in reality we could argue that there are no niche fields as all the information necessary to "self-teach" is probably out there on the internet. What's vastly different is the experience of being taught by someone who has a deep knowledge of the subject, and is willing to share his understanding. While this carries with it the nuances of that particular professor's experiences, it will be much more structured information (and tested, to an extent), and this is a big part of why education at a university is valued so much.

But certainly, university is not the only way to learn. The issue is that there are often too many applicants to jobs already, and recruiters use a university degree as a filter. I think this may be unfair to some people, but the companies also value their time.

[capote]

Once again, you've completely missed the point. I am trying to say that the value of university has nothing to do with your ability to get a job. I'm trying to plead with people to stop trying to compare university with a job or measure the value of a university in terms of a job.

If you can't see the value in university, good for you; nobody's forcing you to go.

[personjerry]

> Once again, you've completely missed the point.

But, you didn't make an argument for your point in your last statement, and instead made a vague, mysterious assertion:

> Universities are tremendously useful and do many great things for society and humanity.

You even explicitly pointed out this fact:

> I'm not going to provide evidence because I think that any reasonable person will agree with me.

[treve]

I still think it's worth talking about this though, as so many people DO think its the only way to go and take on a tremendous financial risk thinking they do it for the job.

I wouldn't contest it's useful, but I'd definitely feel that for most it's probably not worth the price of a US university.