Ask HN: Is university still credible?

If you feel that the purpose of higher education is just to get a job, you are already off-track. Likewise, if you think the value of your education is measured by what hiring managers think, you are off-track.

Learn because you want to know more, do more, and acquire more skills in research and critical thought. Apply everything you learn to your life in order to direct it better and adapt to changes over time. Do that learning in school... or not. Whatever is best for you, personally.

More specific to your question, if other people are short-changing themselves by abusing AI, that has nothing to do with you individually. And if hiring managers cannot see that, would you want to work for them anyway?

> If you feel that the purpose of higher education is just to get a job, you are already off-track. Likewise, if you think the value of your education is measured by what hiring managers think, you are off-track.

Many parents raise their kids this way though. Many people are being raised off-track. I happen to know that because my motivations for university were 50% for getting a job and 50% to satisfy my large curiosity.

> if other people are short-changing themselves by abusing AI, that has nothing to do with you individually.

This question is not about me. Or at least, I'm not asking this question for my personal situation. I'm asking it because I'm concerned about others.

It's about people who believe that a degree proves that they have a certain form of skill in thinking and whatever it is that they studied.

> It's about people who believe that a degree proves that they have a certain form of skill in thinking and whatever it is that they studied.

Do you believe that is incorrect? That studying for 4 years does not give you that skill? Because it probably does. That doesn't make them better than people who didn't do that study, it just is a different experience. And if they abused AI in the process, there will be better and worse students from any given cohort.... but that was true before AI as well. There have always been people who deeply engaged with their education, alongside people who skated by just barely doing enough work to graduate.

Well sure, but quite frankly people undervalued my education when I started out in the job market in the beginning of 2020. They undervalued it in terms of the technical skills I've learned simply because they projected their educational experiences onto mine. That's what that it is.

But apparently _now_ it seems we're going to a world where hiring managers don't believe _anyone_ to have those skills, even if they in fact do have it.

I guess new grads have to make a portfolio on the side and take care of the code quality. Because even if you vibe coded that application, vibe coding a project with high code quality still shows a strong skill in programming as LLMs aren't there yet to do that fully themselves?

Like, how are skillful new grads supposed to show their skill when everyone (is about to) believe their education doesn't show any evidence of skill?

And yea, I agree, cheaters will be cheaters. I'm not talking about them, they're a lost cause in my opinion.

The original idea of a "liberal education" was an education appropriate for a free person, as opposed to learning a trade, which was for slaves.

Translating to today, what you are describing is appropriate for people who don't have urgency to get a job that pays the bills. I mean, it's nice if that's you. If it's not, though, you either need a degree that is going to help you earn money, or you need a job that's good enough that you can get without a degree.

What you say is a nice ideal. (I mean that sincerely.) Not everyone is in an ideal position, though, and for many people, what you are saying is out of reach.

Yep, we are in agreement. That is one reason that I am so adamant that people should not see college as a path to a job - if you need a job, get one. College can (and arguably should) be done later in life when you have the time, flexibility, and maturity to maximize what you get from education.

Frankly, if I had it to do over again, I'd work a few years first before going to school. The experience did have value, but I could have done far better when I was a little older.

If you look at the statistics of the lifetime earnings of someone with a degree and without a degree, there is at least a 75% premium.

“Later in life”, you have kids, responsibilities, and probably don’t have parents who will subsidize your college degree either directly by helping pay for it or indirectly by letting you stay in their health insurance, car insurance and living at home.

Money earned early in your career and invested is worth more than money earned later.

This, 100%. Look East (assuming a Western reference point) for copious evidence that supports this POV. Education is a means to an end, and the only way out of abject poverty (personal experience).

Studying the classics and poetry (arguably components of a well-rounded “liberal” education) is a privileged viewpoint. Hell, I wanted to study theoretical physics. But that would be like studying poetry. Engineering just seemed more practical. Now I earn more than a tenured professor of physics at a top university. Q.E.D.

Everyone says this, and even I've said this, but I don't think this is honest.

You can learn anything you want for free or very cheap by buying textbooks and watching free lectures on YouTube. Hell, you can often email the professors from those lectures and they'll answer questions for you, for free.

Since you can learn for basically nothing, what is the value add for universities? A few things, but a big one is having a certification that "Person X knows enough about subject Y and is vouched for by University Z". University is extremely expensive. Extremely expensive now, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the school (and other criteria). It's not weird for people to want a direct return on investment.

I don't think it's honest to tell people "go to university for the love of learning!!!". If you just "love learning", do it for free.

I'd add one bit of insight to the equation: When you self-direct your learning, you have blind spots to the "Don't know what you don't know" phenomenon, which are far more quickly and easily resolved when learning within a community. Not to mention, the community aspect itself... learning on your own by watching Youtube is a vastly different experience that being in a collective of hundreds or thousands of people all working together on their learning.

So you are absolutely correct that self-teaching works and is a valid approach. But saying that we are dishonest for pointing out positive aspects of college-based learning is taking that perspective too far. There are multiple paths to walk for your education, and they are all valid.

It's a different experience, but it's also an overpriced experience if your goal is to "simply learn". If you genuinely think people should pay 100 grand just for the joy of learning from a professor in person and being surrounded by a bunch of other people without expecting a financial return, then yes I think that's completely intellectually dishonest. It might sound insulting, and it kind of is, but I don't think I'm wrong.

This is coming from someone who has been a university lecturer, and has been part of a PhD program. It's not like I'm completely speaking out of my ass here.

ETA:

To be clear, I am not saying there are no positives to in-person university and I'm not saying university has no value over self-learning. I'm saying it's expensive and I take issue with your statement of "If you feel that the purpose of higher education is just to get a job, you are already off-track."

It's a potentially six-figure investment. It's not weird or wrong for people to do it to get a better job.

How do you look at affordable universities in certain European countries.

Less cynically!

I would be far more amenable to the “go to college just to learn” perspective if American universities were roughly the same cost as European universities.

> If you feel that the purpose of higher education is just to get a job, you are already off-track. Likewise, if you think the value of your education is measured by what hiring managers think, you are off-track.

I actually think that's a pretty valid purpose. I mean we could have purist thoughts of going into universities for research and such, but to be realistic, most people don't go into universities to do research. Like, 95% of them? We do have vocational schools but they are not really enough, especially when hiring managers are setting the bars.

Is it fair/good to follow whatever hiring managers are saying? No. Is it realistic though? Absolutely yes.

Yes. To be equally blunt, sour grapes. Yes, cheating is a problem in higher education. Cheating is a problem everywhere. However, university education still requires three to five years of concentrated effort, whether you cheat your way through or actually learn stuff.

There's other anecdata that 1 in 7 of students are attending classes. This is a little extreme, but it looks like even the students have lost faith in it. Students are using ChatGPT for assessments; professors are getting better at writing assignment-prompts that trip it up.

When people drop out, the ones with a complete degree will be the outliers. It hasn't been about what you learn, uni's main purpose is a form of certification. You can cheat in every other kind of certification too.

Assignments aside, universities at least certify that you have spent time with peers in the same field, both students and professors. Unless you took an online one.

I didn’t go to university to get a job[0].

For the reasons I went, primarily to learn for its own sake and to meet other likeminded, curious, and smart people (I didn’t grow up somewhere that was easy), university is not only credible but still seems like by far the best option for most young people. I’m not sure that’s as obviously true for potential mature students, though.

[0] I’m convinced that anyone who’s done well enough to have (or have had) the option of going to university can have a successful career as long as they’re motivated and willing to go where the work is

And you probably didn’t have to get a job to support your addiction to food and shelter - many do and can’t afford to spend (or borrow) tens of thousands of dollars to be a better citizen of the worlds

I am a lecturer, despite having being a very immature teen who left school with practically no qualifications. I was able to go back and fix what I had broken. Therefore, I understand the privilege university provides to those who can afford it or live in wealthy enough countries who provide it for free.

There are useless programmers, most are ok, and some great. This is true of students and lecturers. A job or education provides a platform for a person. What a person does with this opportunity is up to every individual.

At least in the US - most job postings require at least a Bachelor's for software engineering so it's great to get your foot in the door. But as for standing out compared to other people experience is the differentiator.

I never was able to self teach myself math. One of my big regrets is I wanted to keep the door open for law school so I didn't take calc I/II as electives + a CS minor.

I think having that expert who will give you problem sets + classroom instruction where you can ask clarifying questions is extremely important, and a lot of self taught coders flounder on anything quantitative if they lack it.

Yes, a degree from a decent university is still credible.

It worth but for reason not directly tied for practical experience (take with grain of salt):

- Working with government projects/grants, the moment R&D mentioned - you notice that master degree is requirement for contract

- in any job (especially in public), when climbing ladder without degree you can quickly be disadvantaged or straight up fired

- It worth maybe 2/3 times (if you final projects and marks are top notch), then your cv matter more.

Employers generally value experience more than degrees, but a degree is useful to get your foot in the door. I did that, but I graduated in 2009.

Credible in terms of respected by people who want to pay you money for work: yes, absolutely. The reality is a random person who watches too much youtube who thinks college is useless now (not saying this is you OP but it's a real subset of people) is not special enough to overcome the advantage that having a degree gives you.

Haha, I have 4 degrees. So even if I did think that, my 4 degrees will follow me wherever I go :')

I am just afraid people will think that virtually everyone has cheated with AI and therefore not making it credible anymore.

I just saw this video coming out that touches the issues in this discussion [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTiBF2Hq40I&ab_channel=Jared...

It depends. for software yes i think.

Overall, I think it's still credible, but less credible than before, and heavily depends on your situation.

I run a program for students as a replacement for university, so I'm a bit biased when it comes to this discussion. It's useful to analyze both what a student want out of a degree and how a degree is "consumed" by another party (ex. an employer).

1. University degrees are still the "gold standard" in socially accepted proof-of-education. I think this is mostly due to social momentum. A few years of a "bad batch", ex. due to rampant cheating etc, will not change this. When I talk to other hiring managers, it's a bit of mixed bag. Some sorta understand where the students are coming from, as they also think that a lot of courses etc are arbitrary. Others are more concerned about the ethics of cheating, and the implications on a student's character, rather than the education outcomes ("I can work with inexperience, I can't tolerate lying").

2. If you're planning to pursue a heavily regulated profession, like medicine, you most likely need a degree.

3. As others pointed out, the university criteria now more closely resembles a toll someone must pay to access higher-paying jobs. Ie. it's less about education than gatekeeping. Having it doesn't make you qualified. Not having it disqualifies you in many people's eyes. I think this is partially driving a lot of the cheating. Students sense the disconnect from the university program (and schooling in general) vs real skills. It's just another hoop they have to jump through so they will choose the path of least resistance. For many parents, it's a sort of capstone project for a parenting job well-done. And that adds more to the complexity.

4. How you take advantage of your university experience matters. I wouldn't count on the university for a durable education, ie. actually teaching you things that will make you successful. You need to get that elsewhere (thus the emphasis on work experience). But the social momentum is important, as universities are social centers for young adults, so you may get socially isolated if you don't go. In this case, the value is in the network, not so much the programs etc.

The university experience, despite it's flaws, is still the status quo and definitely the safer "bet". Unless a person have clear understanding of why they shouldn't go, they should probably still go.

How is this better than simply trying to get a dev job through a portfolio at a startup as a young adult? If experience is the differentiator, why go through education at all when you can simply learn it yourself?

I know I'm assuming a lot, but enough people are like this, and I don't think they're aware of the dynamics right now. Moreover, my bias here is tech. I understand that for many professions it's different.

In some ways, it's not better. I agree that the shift is now going towards more real-world experience rather than academics. Part of the motivation for me to create the program was to introduce more self-direction and real-world problems[1].

In addition, I think it's useful to separate education from schooling. What we often confound is the actual acquisition of useful knowledge (fundamental meaning of education) and our institutions (education systems). Learning on your own is very much education!

However, I think employment etc are more complex than just education. There are other factors, like social acceptability, political risk, etc. I've talked to managers who are just risk-averse when it comes to non-degreed students. They'll privately accept that this person has all the skills, maybe even more so than other candidates, but they can't accept them because if this candidate messes up, they will get blamed for hiring them. The political risk is too much, and would be much less if the candidate has more degrees. The systems of accountability is messed up but that's the reality young people have to navigate. They have to understand the markedness of not having a degree. It's sorta like the social version of "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

Depending on what they want to do, the degree won't matter. If you start your own company, obviously no one will care if you have a degree. Some investors see it as a plus. You can argue that putting a 4-yr university tuition as startup capital will teach more useful skills than a degree, even if they don't pursue entrepreneurship later. But most people are not willing or can't take those risks.

[1]https://www.divepod.to