[wisty]

As a society, we do a terrible job at helping workers move on.

You go to school for 12 years, then possibly uni for 3-7, then are unlikely to receive more than a couple of months of formal training throughout the rest of your life, even if you change careers.

Virtually nobody does a university course after graduating. I don't think that's because university is useless (though there is room for improvement), or that skills are easy to obtain elsewhere, but a society that tries to load a lifetime of study onto people who don't even know what they are going to be when they grow up.

[cabalamat]

I agree. I'd make more sense for many career paths if people did maybe 1 year university, then work for maybe 5 years, then 6 months uni, work for 5 years, etc.

Why do all undergraduate courses last the same length of time? Not because the amount of time it takes to master every subject is the same, but because of administrative convenience.

[maigret]

Also because it has just been so. In the old times, you used to do the same thing as your parents, and capabilities didn't usually go obsolete during the course of one's work life, even less if that was at a college level.