[tjmc]

Depends on what you're studying. Subjects like medicine, dentistry and chemistry need extensive lab facilities and highly skilled, often personal tuition. That's going to cost a lot no matter where it's done.

On a broader level you also need to consider the value of networking opportunities. Is the course content of a Harvard MBA really that much better than elsewhere? Of course not. It's the contacts you make while you're there.

[netsp]

Possibly, but this needn't affect those studying history.

I listen to this economist podcast here & there. Recently, they were talking about how strange it is that they need any kind of qualifications to do the thing that they get paid for. They tell undergrads that the demand curve slopes down & the supply curve slopes the other way. That knowledge is freely available and easily accessible. Yet their students bid up the price of the best academics to tell them this.

A better professor's demand curve slopes the same as a crappier one's. You may be right that this does not apply to dentistry.

[timwiseman]

As others have said, the knowledge in most universities is not what you are paying for. I am currently getting my Master's in Mathematics. I am truly learning a great deal, but that is not what I am paying for. All of the information in the classes I am taking is readily available for free or extremely cheap.

From my perspective I am paying for 3 things: 1. A ready made (albiet small) community of other math grad students that can answer my questions when I don't understand some of the freely available information. 2. A highly educated professor that can provide further explanation and advice if my peer group of math grad students can't explain it well enough to me. 3. (arguably most important) A respected institution prepared to certify to prospective employers that I really have gained gained those skills.

The knowledge is free, you can get #1 on your own with a little work and a little luck, but #2 is hard to get without being an actual student and #3 is is very hard to get without the institution.

And before people say you don't need #3, it helps you get interviews if not necessarily jobs. I have been that hiring manager that has to weed through dozens of resumes to determine who I am going to spend my time interviewing. A degree was certainly a good discriminator for who was worth my time. I certainly didn't require it and I interviewed people who had experience but no degree, but they had to have something else on their resume to show me it was worth my time.

I worked for a small company, when dealing with middle management (or worse, HR) at a big company, they really want to be able to cover themselves and show why they hired someone on paper. To many of them being able to justify the decision is more important then actually getting the best person. The degree makes it alot easier for them to do that.

If you plan to start your own company, a degree is meaningless of course, but even Paul Graham says that path should be approached with great caution if you are married with children.

[netsp]

I'm not saying that these are not important or easily achievable outside of Universities. I am saying maybe they could be. IE, maybe someone can come up with a way of creating the networks & whatever else is important without being a university.

[timwiseman]

You are quite correct, BUT at least for the forseeable future a university is the most efficient way to get those things, and especially to get all 3 at once.

I could for instance create a facebook page and start gathering a group of other people interested in math to ask questions. But it would take time to find that was worth the time to actually talk and listen to and then of those the ones that were actually interested in my specific topic. With a class, those are ready made. You rarely find foolish people in upper division math classes at all so I know everyone there is (most likely) worth my time to deal with and we have the class in common so we are all looking at the same broad field at least.

Similarly, we could create certifications for math skills similar to certain technologies, but it would take a long time (if ever) before employers and HR departments in particular gave those the same weight as a normal degree.

Universities are certainly not the only choice, but for the meantime they are the best choice for someone who wants that combination of a ready made, (partially) vetted community of peers along with later certification of the skills gained.

[netsp]

I still think you're reading me backwards. I'm not recommending not going to University.

Say I thought that blogging could be easier 5 years ago. It would not be easier to build an easier blogging engine. It would be easier to just use whatever existed. But it would have been correct to identify that easier blogging is possible, a market exists & someone would cater to it at some point.

I think that University education (and possibly also the other features of Universities) could be available for easier/cheaper/different. I also think there is a market for this. I think that eventually Universities may not have the same prominence they do now.

[timwiseman]

Ah, I did partially misunderstand. I agree that the potential exists for universities to eventually be partially replaced by some other system, and I also think that right now we as a society undervalue vocational training.

With that said, I do not know what that partial replacement will be and I do not think (though I certainly could be wrong) that it will come anytime in the near future.