Even before the internet, a determined person could learn about anything at a library. It's been a long time since a university has been strictly necessary for that. Today, at least at the undergrad level, universities function as a job screen for people who can dedicate themselves to an academic program and complete it, providing practical experiences in labs, internships, and clinical settings that an individual cannot really do for himself, and also for meeting people and starting to build a network.
> Today, at least at the undergrad level, universities function as a job screen for people who can dedicate themselves to an academic program and complete it
I predict that this is not going to last much longer itf institutions continue to avoid holding students accountable for egregious acts of academic misconduct.
Every time they choose student tuition over maintaining the integrity of the credentials the value of the credentials as a screen drops a little bit. At some point it will fall below a threshold, and then at some point afterwards the rest of society will realize it.
The credential itself is usually irrelevant, most jobs that require a degree will accept any degree. In those cases it's being used as a class filter more than an indication of merit or training.
This comment has me confused. The first sentence reinforces my point, the second one contradicts it (and isn't true in my experience, many companies want a degree, any degree). Say more?
I guess I don't understand what you're trying to say, especially after your reply.
Here's what I am saying: most top companies require degrees but will only take a degree from a select list of colleges, while government jobs that require degrees will accept a degree from any college.
Protip: university was always mostly a class filter - sure it had other functions too but access required years without substantial earnings, prior education, money, and cultural familiarity with academic institutions, so basically only rich people could go to university
The tipping point will be when an AI/LLM is as good as a human with a bachelor's degree. At that point, it won't matter how legitimate the credentials are, because the jobs just won't be there for people anymore.
For software at least, that point was probably reached like 10 months ago, and has definitely been blown past by now. It's not like humans with a fresh degree and no experience have much business/product sense, which is the only place where the AI might still be lacking. From what I can see, usually "senior" (so generally several years experience) means "can be asked to do a vague thing and they'll actually get it done independently."
For a lot of office jobs, in terms of what people do on computers, this is already the case. However, I don't think a lot of these jobs are going away just yet.
It's really the same enshittification trajectory everywhere: Once it's been turned into a commercial product, the optimization of rent seeking gradually displaces all other purposes.
> Even before the internet, a determined person could learn about anything at a library. It's been a long time since a university has been strictly necessary for that
That completely overlooks some things
- Most people are _not_ that determined and need something to help them stay focused and committed to your goals.
- Learning the material is only one part - having someone guide you through _what_ to learn is very beneficial
- Taking time off life (work, etc) in order to do that learning isn't that easy. "Going to college" is a lot easier to explain/fund then "taking some me time for 3 years"
It also provides a feedback and assessment mechanism. It’s far from perfect, of course. But in my own specialty people who have some formal formal education tend to have a much firmer grasp of the subject matter than people who haven’t.
I don’t think this is because the quality of learning materials available to self study is poorer. Frankly my grad school lectures were largely incomprehensible so I ended up leaning on written material that’s just as available to an autodidact. It’s because school provided regular assessments that keeps people (who aren’t cheating) honest with themselves about how well they understand it.
That said, how good a job academia is doing at providing that particular service is another question.
Most libraries could secure specific books if you needed them and they weren't stocked at that specific location. It was very dependent on the library but your local librarian would know the process for your specific location.
The libraries I know of have inter-library loan where you can borrow a book from any library in their network. I got a Real Analysis book this way (no way my local library would have that).
>> a determined person could learn about anything at a library.
A determined person could read about anything at a library. Learning takes more than reading. Certainly nobody could become any sort of medical doctor without practical training. But even the most bookish of programs still require one to stop reading, put down the book and actually write something. If you are writing something you need someone better than you to read and judge it. That requires access to better-educated people in your chosen field. THAT is what universities offer beyond a library.
I graduated from high school around 2010. Information has been free my entire life. My college campus connected me with people who were in a similar place in life. We were trying to find a place we could contribute, and were uncertain about the future. Uncertain of how we fit in. Instructor quality varied, as I'm sure it always does, but even the weaker professors were seen as our leaders in that uncertain time. They all coached us to listen to ourselves, and to suit our strengths. I felt a presence on my college campuses.
I don't know why colleges get so much hate. My college wasn't a party school and yet I remember that time in my life very fondly. I couldn't have achieved what I did without college.
I completely agree and always disliked the "college is a waste of time," that's made the rounds by everyone from Thiel to the Iced Coffee Hour(?!). There is value in having a space where people at the same stage of life spend a concerted effort on learning and self development, and it's just a shame that in the 21st century that realistically college-as-vocational-training and the cost of college have muddled what should be a pretty idealistic environment. Perhaps I'm naive.
The Open University has given academically respectable accredited degrees to remote learners since 1969. Most of the UK university campuses and in-person courses have come into existence since that successful experiment with remote learning. It's almost like evidence of ability to autodidactically absorb a syllabus isn't actually the point for most employers...
I never realized just how much I would miss being able to assume that (nearly) everything I read online, no matter how crappy or annoying or frustrating, was written by a human being.
IMO a lot of kids now experience their adolescence in college, not in high school. High school kids focus so much on activities and schoolwork, they don’t get the same social experiences they used to in high school. Now they get it in college.
College becomes the safe island for young adults to grow into their own, gain social skills, and grow relationships for later in life (professional and otherwise).
Which also is interesting because what does this mean for non college bound people?
> High school kids focus so much on activities and schoolwork
College-bound high school kids do.
High school kids who will be going into trades or are just not college-bound will do school activities if it interests them, or they will have part-time jobs, or maybe just coast into whatever happens.
I learned a lot in college, but living with people my age really helped me socially. I went from a shy nerd who could not make eye contact to the "life of the party" (still a nerd though).
my anecdote is i struggled to relate to my peers in college but my early jobs and housemates post-college helped me much more socially than college did. i guess my friends and i did much better with tangible stakes
college gave me a skill i often discount: the ability to collaboratively communicate knowledge in a group project setting. its so secondhand that i only noticed much later in life i honed that skill in college
The primary business value of a university will likely be signaling competence which, ironically, they are in a good position to establish with old school infrastructure like pen-on-paper tests.
The primary social value of a university will be providing a stimulating intellectual environment, which they should get back to doing.
I think there's a few things that are true at the same time:
1. For the average person, getting a university degree is a much more reliable way to learn a subject than trying to learn it by yourself.
2. There are other ways that college adds value to your life other than the stuff they teach in class.
3. For highly motivated people, they are increasingly able to teach themselves a subject quickly and efficiently without having to deal with all the extra crap university makes you wait through.
4. The market value of a university degree is decreasing (the wage premium) and for some degrees the wage premium is not worth the investment from a strictly financial perspective.
As someone who cares a lot about AI/LLMs making breakthroughs in certain areas like medicine due to my own history with health problems, if it means all the stimulating experiences of life become meaningless, sometimes I wonder if it will be worth it in the end. Which is why I dread the future where their negative externalities aren’t reigned in.
Idk maybe depends on what you study or what your college campus offers. But for my case studying EE, getting access to expensive lab equipments and also being able to network with companies looking to hire juniors makes it quite valuable to me.
Yes, practical experience in a field that requires expensive equipment or tools is hard or impossible to do on your own. School and/or apprenticeships are pretty necessary for that.
This is a ridiculous take. University isn't the gatekeeper for information, it's a place where learning and academic study happen; these are separate dimensions of the broader concept of knowledge.
Teaching people how to think critically, how to contextualize information (both notionally as well as concretely within a given field of study), and how to develop new ideas within a field (both solo and collaboratively) have always been the value add; I say this as a university dropout who didn't appreciate this at the time.
Independent learning will only go so far if you don't know the questions to ask, and that's something you get through sustained exposure to an environment that nurtures that.
I'll mention as well that rolling back learning institutions is a very dangerous line of argument, especially in the age of misinformation, disinformation, and pervasive news-as-entertainment leading to both societal divisions and the erosion of critical thinking.
It's very possible to go through an undergrad program and not learn how to think critically, how to contextualize information, and how to develop new ideas. General liberal-arts elective requirements are supposed to inculcate that but the students who view college as "job training" will be focused on learning practical knowledge and skills in their career interest areas.
Great point on universities and professors making their courses/materials publicly available.
Can you help me understand what you mean by curating?
If I take a subject, for a particular class, there's likely only a fixed outline of concepts and ultimately words to describe it, packaged up in one ore more textbooks all presenting their wording.
Since Open Educational Resources are very much an established thing by professional textbook authors.
Self-directed learning is the only skill that builds the ability to learn how to learn.
The premise of this post is what value a physical campus provides. In some ways, I think that will have to evolve because there are no shortage of academics that love building and dedicating buildings, similar to the odd hobby of politicians who love statues.
Sounds like intelligent, effective planning, and I wish India the best of luck. Unfortunately, it will likely never happen in the US, due to entrenched interests, anti-education attitudes, and economic challenges -- not that the country as a whole couldn't afford it, but funds for higher education are being siphoned into private pockets.
Man, that headline shows a complete misunderstanding of what college is for.
Information has always been freely accessible to those who know how to search for it. Primary Education was partly about instilling those skills in the form of critical thinking, though its efficacy is varied and debatable. So to say the utility of college was information, is like saying the utility of a car is mobility: technically correct, but not remotely a robust descriptor.
No, the point of college was threefold: credentials (as a means of generating elites - and decreasingly valuable), socialization across perspectives (which is still the case today - it’s often one’s first exposure beyond their initial social spheres growing up, and where deeply held views are almost immediately challenged), and research. Through the exploration of those aspects, information is transmuted into knowledge and experience, neither of which can be solely obtained through access of information (only through its application).
Colleges have immense value at all ages and for all demographics. It’s why I’m so fervent a supporter of free higher education at public schools.
Even before the internet, a determined person could learn about anything at a library. It's been a long time since a university has been strictly necessary for that. Today, at least at the undergrad level, universities function as a job screen for people who can dedicate themselves to an academic program and complete it, providing practical experiences in labs, internships, and clinical settings that an individual cannot really do for himself, and also for meeting people and starting to build a network.
> Today, at least at the undergrad level, universities function as a job screen for people who can dedicate themselves to an academic program and complete it
I predict that this is not going to last much longer itf institutions continue to avoid holding students accountable for egregious acts of academic misconduct.
Every time they choose student tuition over maintaining the integrity of the credentials the value of the credentials as a screen drops a little bit. At some point it will fall below a threshold, and then at some point afterwards the rest of society will realize it.
The credential itself is usually irrelevant, most jobs that require a degree will accept any degree. In those cases it's being used as a class filter more than an indication of merit or training.
Many top paying companies will only hire from a very select list of colleges. What you're saying mostly applies to government jobs.
This comment has me confused. The first sentence reinforces my point, the second one contradicts it (and isn't true in my experience, many companies want a degree, any degree). Say more?
I guess I don't understand what you're trying to say, especially after your reply.
Here's what I am saying: most top companies require degrees but will only take a degree from a select list of colleges, while government jobs that require degrees will accept a degree from any college.
Protip: university was always mostly a class filter - sure it had other functions too but access required years without substantial earnings, prior education, money, and cultural familiarity with academic institutions, so basically only rich people could go to university
agreed, even more-so with the higher-tier universities
The tipping point will be when an AI/LLM is as good as a human with a bachelor's degree. At that point, it won't matter how legitimate the credentials are, because the jobs just won't be there for people anymore.
For software at least, that point was probably reached like 10 months ago, and has definitely been blown past by now. It's not like humans with a fresh degree and no experience have much business/product sense, which is the only place where the AI might still be lacking. From what I can see, usually "senior" (so generally several years experience) means "can be asked to do a vague thing and they'll actually get it done independently."
For a lot of office jobs, in terms of what people do on computers, this is already the case. However, I don't think a lot of these jobs are going away just yet.
It's really the same enshittification trajectory everywhere: Once it's been turned into a commercial product, the optimization of rent seeking gradually displaces all other purposes.
> Even before the internet, a determined person could learn about anything at a library. It's been a long time since a university has been strictly necessary for that
That completely overlooks some things
- Most people are _not_ that determined and need something to help them stay focused and committed to your goals.
- Learning the material is only one part - having someone guide you through _what_ to learn is very beneficial
- Taking time off life (work, etc) in order to do that learning isn't that easy. "Going to college" is a lot easier to explain/fund then "taking some me time for 3 years"
It also provides a feedback and assessment mechanism. It’s far from perfect, of course. But in my own specialty people who have some formal formal education tend to have a much firmer grasp of the subject matter than people who haven’t.
I don’t think this is because the quality of learning materials available to self study is poorer. Frankly my grad school lectures were largely incomprehensible so I ended up leaning on written material that’s just as available to an autodidact. It’s because school provided regular assessments that keeps people (who aren’t cheating) honest with themselves about how well they understand it.
That said, how good a job academia is doing at providing that particular service is another question.
A determines persons cannot get a diploma at the library. That piece of paper is need to get past the HR screens.
I dont think rural library would have up to date CS books even now but I'm ready to be wrong by anyone, not one example, I mean majority of them?
Right now you can learn hardest things, while on flight or in some remote area, crazy difference
Most libraries could secure specific books if you needed them and they weren't stocked at that specific location. It was very dependent on the library but your local librarian would know the process for your specific location.
The libraries I know of have inter-library loan where you can borrow a book from any library in their network. I got a Real Analysis book this way (no way my local library would have that).
It's absolutely more accessible now, agreed.
>> a determined person could learn about anything at a library.
A determined person could read about anything at a library. Learning takes more than reading. Certainly nobody could become any sort of medical doctor without practical training. But even the most bookish of programs still require one to stop reading, put down the book and actually write something. If you are writing something you need someone better than you to read and judge it. That requires access to better-educated people in your chosen field. THAT is what universities offer beyond a library.
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I graduated from high school around 2010. Information has been free my entire life. My college campus connected me with people who were in a similar place in life. We were trying to find a place we could contribute, and were uncertain about the future. Uncertain of how we fit in. Instructor quality varied, as I'm sure it always does, but even the weaker professors were seen as our leaders in that uncertain time. They all coached us to listen to ourselves, and to suit our strengths. I felt a presence on my college campuses.
I don't know why colleges get so much hate. My college wasn't a party school and yet I remember that time in my life very fondly. I couldn't have achieved what I did without college.
Agnes Callard (philosophy prof at UChicago) calls the university "a place for co-learning."
I completely agree and always disliked the "college is a waste of time," that's made the rounds by everyone from Thiel to the Iced Coffee Hour(?!). There is value in having a space where people at the same stage of life spend a concerted effort on learning and self development, and it's just a shame that in the 21st century that realistically college-as-vocational-training and the cost of college have muddled what should be a pretty idealistic environment. Perhaps I'm naive.
People were saying the exact same thing 15 years ago when MOOCs started showing up. Yet all these years later, people still go to college campuses.
15 years is barely 1 generation. Social institutions die slowly.
It has not been that many years yet. Habits die hard, but in time, perhaps that will change.
The Open University has given academically respectable accredited degrees to remote learners since 1969. Most of the UK university campuses and in-person courses have come into existence since that successful experiment with remote learning. It's almost like evidence of ability to autodidactically absorb a syllabus isn't actually the point for most employers...
Either written by Claude or someone who has spoken to it too much
Pangram says 100% AI for the first four paragraphs:
https://www.pangram.com/history/fc87c7df-96c6-4f41-ad7f-ca55...
I never realized just how much I would miss being able to assume that (nearly) everything I read online, no matter how crappy or annoying or frustrating, was written by a human being.
I've officially stopped using AI for anything other than highly syntactic data like code and math. The brain rot is real. Just go to X and see lol
IMO a lot of kids now experience their adolescence in college, not in high school. High school kids focus so much on activities and schoolwork, they don’t get the same social experiences they used to in high school. Now they get it in college.
College becomes the safe island for young adults to grow into their own, gain social skills, and grow relationships for later in life (professional and otherwise).
Which also is interesting because what does this mean for non college bound people?
> High school kids focus so much on activities and schoolwork
College-bound high school kids do.
High school kids who will be going into trades or are just not college-bound will do school activities if it interests them, or they will have part-time jobs, or maybe just coast into whatever happens.
School activities are social experiences. Unless you're defining social experiences narrowly as drinking and drugs.
It’s highly structured in a way my teenage years were not.
Information may be free, but knowledge and wisdom still need to be cultivated
I learned a lot in college, but living with people my age really helped me socially. I went from a shy nerd who could not make eye contact to the "life of the party" (still a nerd though).
my anecdote is i struggled to relate to my peers in college but my early jobs and housemates post-college helped me much more socially than college did. i guess my friends and i did much better with tangible stakes
college gave me a skill i often discount: the ability to collaboratively communicate knowledge in a group project setting. its so secondhand that i only noticed much later in life i honed that skill in college
I wrote an essay on this:
https://htmx.org/essays/universities-and-ai/
The primary business value of a university will likely be signaling competence which, ironically, they are in a good position to establish with old school infrastructure like pen-on-paper tests.
The primary social value of a university will be providing a stimulating intellectual environment, which they should get back to doing.
I think the understanding of what a college is breaks into two schools of thought.
One group (mostly students) believe it is a skills training facility, training for specific job skills for specific jobs.
Another group (mostly faculty) believes it is teaching people how to learn skills.
Students in the first group are always panicking about their jobs going away.
Students in the second group learn new skills quickly, and see opportunities when the world changes around them.
What I would humbly argue is what it’s (primarily) always been about:
Building relationships.
I think there's a few things that are true at the same time: 1. For the average person, getting a university degree is a much more reliable way to learn a subject than trying to learn it by yourself. 2. There are other ways that college adds value to your life other than the stuff they teach in class. 3. For highly motivated people, they are increasingly able to teach themselves a subject quickly and efficiently without having to deal with all the extra crap university makes you wait through. 4. The market value of a university degree is decreasing (the wage premium) and for some degrees the wage premium is not worth the investment from a strictly financial perspective.
As someone who cares a lot about AI/LLMs making breakthroughs in certain areas like medicine due to my own history with health problems, if it means all the stimulating experiences of life become meaningless, sometimes I wonder if it will be worth it in the end. Which is why I dread the future where their negative externalities aren’t reigned in.
Even if I can watch tv shows and movies on Netflix doesn’t mean I don’t want friends and family opinion on what is important and what to learn next.
I think they are needed more than ever. Otherwise people don’t know how to filter this information.
If the replication crisis has anything to say about it, colleges seem to be a pretty bad filter.
Still a better filter than the internet, though.
The big current question: Are they a better filter than AIs?
The campus is for networking
Idk maybe depends on what you study or what your college campus offers. But for my case studying EE, getting access to expensive lab equipments and also being able to network with companies looking to hire juniors makes it quite valuable to me.
Yes, practical experience in a field that requires expensive equipment or tools is hard or impossible to do on your own. School and/or apprenticeships are pretty necessary for that.
My university had a (small) nuclear reactor. My local library isn't going to get me access to one of those.
If you're asking this question, then I'm not sure you actually understood what college campuses were for previously, either.
This is a ridiculous take. University isn't the gatekeeper for information, it's a place where learning and academic study happen; these are separate dimensions of the broader concept of knowledge.
Teaching people how to think critically, how to contextualize information (both notionally as well as concretely within a given field of study), and how to develop new ideas within a field (both solo and collaboratively) have always been the value add; I say this as a university dropout who didn't appreciate this at the time.
Independent learning will only go so far if you don't know the questions to ask, and that's something you get through sustained exposure to an environment that nurtures that.
I'll mention as well that rolling back learning institutions is a very dangerous line of argument, especially in the age of misinformation, disinformation, and pervasive news-as-entertainment leading to both societal divisions and the erosion of critical thinking.
It's very possible to go through an undergrad program and not learn how to think critically, how to contextualize information, and how to develop new ideas. General liberal-arts elective requirements are supposed to inculcate that but the students who view college as "job training" will be focused on learning practical knowledge and skills in their career interest areas.
Connections
I'm not saying it's ok, but some people seem to trust reading a textbook at a university more than reading it on your own.
Of course, this is preposterous.
Well, what I will say though is that I trust the university more when it comes to curating which textbook to read.
Learning on your own can sometimes feel like looking for needles (good learning material) in a haystack (e.g. the internet).
Luckily, many universities and university professors make their courses and course material publicly available!
Great point on universities and professors making their courses/materials publicly available.
Can you help me understand what you mean by curating?
If I take a subject, for a particular class, there's likely only a fixed outline of concepts and ultimately words to describe it, packaged up in one ore more textbooks all presenting their wording.
Since Open Educational Resources are very much an established thing by professional textbook authors.
Self-directed learning is the only skill that builds the ability to learn how to learn.
The premise of this post is what value a physical campus provides. In some ways, I think that will have to evolve because there are no shortage of academics that love building and dedicating buildings, similar to the odd hobby of politicians who love statues.
Sounds like intelligent, effective planning, and I wish India the best of luck. Unfortunately, it will likely never happen in the US, due to entrenched interests, anti-education attitudes, and economic challenges -- not that the country as a whole couldn't afford it, but funds for higher education are being siphoned into private pockets.
Food fights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZN4r8p6KbU
network, status etc...
Its what its always been there for:
1. Networking
2. Mentorships in the respective top of fields
3. Good-ol-Boys club, for the ivy leagues
4. Accumulator for rarer knowledge, including people
5. And since the GI bill, its been a diploma mill and a federal-money-grabber and indefinite tax on the populace who were suckered into the money pit
Man, that headline shows a complete misunderstanding of what college is for.
Information has always been freely accessible to those who know how to search for it. Primary Education was partly about instilling those skills in the form of critical thinking, though its efficacy is varied and debatable. So to say the utility of college was information, is like saying the utility of a car is mobility: technically correct, but not remotely a robust descriptor.
No, the point of college was threefold: credentials (as a means of generating elites - and decreasingly valuable), socialization across perspectives (which is still the case today - it’s often one’s first exposure beyond their initial social spheres growing up, and where deeply held views are almost immediately challenged), and research. Through the exploration of those aspects, information is transmuted into knowledge and experience, neither of which can be solely obtained through access of information (only through its application).
Colleges have immense value at all ages and for all demographics. It’s why I’m so fervent a supporter of free higher education at public schools.
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What a profoundly dumb question.
It’s for getting into “the boys club” i.e. nepotism.