Like, I personally agree with you, but then I also think that we don't have the right to define it as such. There's plenty of people who think that the main goal of a university(at least in scientific/engineering fields) should be to prepare people for working in the industry.
Equally, I see nothing wrong with courses which are specifically designed for this. I myself have finished a "Games Engineering" masters which boasted about close links to the industry, and over 90% hire rate in the industry after - and I got exactly what was promised. I don't see any issue with that personally. I also have friends who had their entire PhDs funded by companies like Red Hat, because they were researching things done in collaboration with them. Also don't have any issue here, and that made sure that my friends not only paid nothing for their PhDs, they were actually pretty well compensated throughout.
I think the perspective changes when you have to pay for university. My sister has a degree in film making from a British university, which she paid nealy £60k(!!!!) for, and her chances of employment in the industry are nearly zero. Where I'm from(Poland)_all higher education is free, and then I have no problem with degrees not correlating with employment(but then maybe on the other hand, as a Polish tax payer, maybe I would prefer that they did, otherwise why are we paying these people to study with no employment prospects afterwards. Again, I don't really think that but I know many people do).
There used to be a system of education here in the UK called vocational colleges (or sometimes courses) where you would do exactly this, prepare for work in the industry - and industry would be involved in helping shape the curriculum, giving students work experience etc.
This has fallen out of favour a lot, it still exists for trades activities like plumbing, electrician, bricklaying/building etc. but you won't find a software engineering course
Recently the government tried to bring back "apprenticeships" but this was abused very hard by retailers to pay shelf stackers 1/2 the minimum wage.
At any time, you can download your google docs data and have it locally. You can convert it to word/excel formats.
This makes anything you are trying to argue completely irrelevant.
If they basically forced you to keep your data in their proprietary format online-only, then maybe you have an argument.. but since this is not true you are grasping at straws here.
isn't that the price you pay for using any online sharing thingy? you gain easy sharing+access (because it's "on someone else's computer"), but lose control. if it makes information easily accessible (contrast with xeroxing paper docs), i think it's a decent trade-off.
it'd be nice if we weren't reliant on one service provider, but idk any good alternatives.
> those students aren’t prepping to work for Google.
i don't get this part. would you criticize the widespread usage of MS Office as "those people aren't prepping to work for Microsoft"?
It’s also why many people are upset at the idea of forgiving student loans. “I spent $20k for my degree, but Person X got into med school and is $250k in debt on their own will. Make them pay for it!”
There’s some parallels between making college/university free and the free K-12 education mandates decades ago. (Yes, it’s not “free free” but “taxed to be free”, but that’s beside the point)
Also, people don’t want their taxes raised when there’s no benefit to them. If one’s kids have all graduated, you see no reason to pay more money and get nothing in return.
Don't forget about all the big whale donors too. Universities really enjoy receiving millions of dollars for endowments, scholarships, and capital projects. So they may cater to the needs and desires of those constituents.
Well, speak for yourself. The majority of people in my classes absolutely had in mind going to industry after their studies. There's nothing wrong with that. Those two goals, being prepared for industry AND science aren't mutually exclusive.
Advantage was that we had very modern equipment (electrics, robotics, measuring instruments, ...) that would otherwise have crashed the budget of the university.
It wasn't a secret that industry tried to influence the curriculum to get students to be trained in technologies and tools they themselves use. It is clear they tried to poach students.
I understand the objection though and other departments constantly berated this closeness and they certainly had a point because the generality of education was endangered.
With big-tech in software there are some additional risks in my opinion.
That said, there is merit of feedback from industry to university. It is especially helpful to not let students learn about outdated approaches and tech and keep academia in the know.
But that has to be a transparent forum without some maybe not so moral gifts from industries.
Are you really sure that big tech wants these people in their workforce? At least the typical tech job interview process tests for quite different skills.
For example if Google decides that something doesn't exist, 90+% of connected people won't see it.
This is scary.
You are right your supposed to learn the theory at UNI Tech companies want to avoid the cost of training / career development - to many MBA/Accountants.
One of the reasons is there are just too many students. How this came to be is another rabbithole though.
It is in the interest of society as a whole to have a better-educated population. That means support for individuals being educated must come from all members of society -- in other words, it's a government domain funded through taxes. Absent common support, the interests of specific groups, mostly corporate shareholders expecting fat quarterly results, will come to dominate.
What a lot of software 'engineers' in NL rather don't see is that you can make a very very healthy living as a 'drywaller' ( not a native speaker, can't find the word ). You can easily make more than as a software dev.
The general population just is not as malleable ( Dutch: maakbaar? ) as boomers would like to believe. So at the bottom we have an entire cohort who used to work in factories or the building industry, who rely on financial support.
The first 'food bank' in NL was started in 2000. Why?
It's hard to do this kind of job when you're 50 or 60 and with physical work the risk of death or injury is also higher.
Plus it's harder to move up the financial and social ladder.
It's pretty much universal that people appreciate some kinds of work and look down on others.
We should not forget their predicament is in their own making after all. It definitely sleeps better.
If a more educated population was better then we would keep accumulating more degrees until we die instead of working.
Also, don't confuse a degree with education. Apprenticeships and technical training are also education.