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When I completed a CS degree in '88 I remember thinking that what it was really doing was lining you up to possibly go on to do postgraduate research - which I did eventually do. If you aren't going to be doing something that is vaguely like research then I'm struggling to see the relevance of CS degrees for most development jobs.

Universities are really rather splendid places for research and absolutely awful at vocational training!

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I couldn't agree more. Universities shouldn't be for everyone - they should be for people who are in it for the learning, or for highly skilled research, not degree factories for entry level positions.

What breaks my heart in academia in the UK is seeing courses being dumbed down so that students are "happy" in their courses (i.e. not failing) so that the university gets a good response in the National Student Survey. The other thing I see is an increasing sense of entitlement - "we pay your wages so you should pass us". Going to uni is like going to the gym. You don't get fit by simply having a gym subscription - you have to work at it. Same goes for a university education. Higher fees are only going to make that sense of entitlement worse, which means for more dumbing down... and the cycle continues.

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