University dilemmas

 

I see that our current (not long now) Prime Minister tweeted the following message yesterday..

It's a very strange message coming from someone who has fully exploited the educational system from private schools through to the best universities in the world. I do wonder what he means by "success" as I think you could safely say that he wouldn't be where he is now without the educational pedigree that he has. Let's hope he means it in the broadest sense, but (as I suspect) let's, for a moment, assume that Rishi means monetary/career success. If so, then the question is, if university doesn't count much toward career/money success why should someone even bother to spend the money and go at all?

Here are a few of the reasons why I think that someone might have for going into higher education.

- To study a subject that they are passionate about, regardless of financial opportunity

- To study a subject where there is a high demand for financially rewarding jobs

- To immerse themselves in an academic culture, exposure to new ideas, meet people, have fun

- To become an academic

- To build a strong network of like-minded or fellow enthusiasts, to be exploited in the future

- To grow themselves mentally and/or physically, become happier and more self-fulfilled

- Escape from the constraints of a home environment, for whatever reason

- To push the boundaries of current knowledge

.. among many others

There are of course other ways to do all of these things but to say that being more educated isn't correlated with higher levels of career and/or fiscal success is wrong, the numbers suggest the opposite. Of course there are exceptions to this and whenever this topic comes up many people like to point them out! But, it's a little like the old argument that goes something like, "my granny smoked and drank like a fish but lived to 90", sure but if you conflate exceptions with the norm then laws of statistics will likely bite you in the bum.