Denmark tackles youth unemployment with university cuts | Hacker News Reader

Denmark tackles youth unemployment with university cuts

west-info.eu

29 pointsMrJagil33 comments

I thought it was interesting with this discussion in mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8394136

As other countries have shown some socialist movements in recent years (Obamacare, weed legalization, Germany making universities free etc), we in Denmark, praised for equality and happiness, are tightening the screw. We are not studying for knowledge anymore, but for profits.

Though I am Danish, I am not trying to complain or be overly emotional. It just seems very interesting that we're all, globally, moving towards the middle.

Yes, I am painting with _very_ broad strokes. Pressed for time to find more evidence. Will update.

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I thought it was interesting with this discussion in mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8394136

Though I am Danish, I am not trying to complain or be overly emotional. It just seems very interesting that we're all, globally, moving towards the middle.

Yes, I am painting with _very_ broad strokes.

At some point in time the University stopped being the place to gain knowledge and instead became a trade school to gain a job. It's a reflection of society's values: money and the things it buys is more important than knowledge. Maybe it always was and we were just kidding ourselves thinking we ever really valued knowledge. Anyway this will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Well, let's be realistic. At some point in time the University also stopped being the place where privileged elites, noblemen and merchants and the like, sent their children (already destined for reasonably lucrative careers) to become better people and to appreciate refinement in things like Knowledge and Philosophy, rather than just in Money.

It's now a really democratic institution, with large sums of taxpayer funding available to people from all walks of life. This is probably a net win, and it shouldn't be seen as ostentatiously degrading to pay some heed to the exigencies of The Real World and outcomes there.

The question, naturally, is one of balance, how to avoid both "university as trade school" and ivory-tower head-in-the-clouds detachment from reality.

It was when we decided to send everybody to University instead of just a certain set. A different group of people went in with different expectations. If you understand it properly it's hard to even call it wrong.

As it is often easy for the elites to forget, knowledge-focused university training is a luxury, in the sense that we can only have it if we also have a solid enough social foundation that we have the excess resources to dedicate people to not-immediately-productive tasks. Lately I'd say our elites have done a fairly poor job tending the foundation.

It just seems strange to me that despite swaths of evidence, people in position of power _still_ think in short terms.

Though we all agree computer science is very important these days, who can deny the societal importance of philosophy, psychology etc despite the job market being narrower. Even fringe studies such as eskimology (the study of Eskimo's, and yes, you can study that in DK) will certainly have value in some way or another, same as going to the moon.

Knowledge for knowledge's sake is important exactly because we don't know it's importance or value.

"It just seems strange to me that despite swaths of evidence, people in position of power _still_ think in short terms."

Are you kidding me? There's an election every four years and under the current government there's been umpteen reshuffles. Politicians have to respond to incentives, I mean opinion polls.

As a fellow Dane I am not surprised at all that our politicians, many of whom are only partway through (the same) degree when they are elected, would take the short view of things.

Does that mean the inability to think for the long term is a fundamental limitation of modern democracies?

Well, I don't know if it's fundamental. I hope not. Perhaps you could change the constitution somehow. You could mess with term lengths or limit someone's tenure.

Or you could have a part time parliament like in Switzerland. That way the politicians need normal jobs and are not dependent on the voters for a livelihood.

The question is, once you have the current system, how are you going to get the incumbents to vote themselves out of work?

At the risk of oversimplifying, I have also noted that Denmark is becoming less Scandinavian in many areas. Which is sad, as people running the country got so many things right in the 1980-2000s.

Many KU or DTU departments that ranked amongst the very best have fallen apart. As a foreigner, I have sensed an alarming increase in nepotism.

Doesn't supply and demand dictate that keeping population constant and limiting career options will lead to an increase in supply in the still available career paths? This will either be met by a decline in real wages or, if real wages can't adapt due to regulations, an increase in unemployment in those fields?

This seems a lot like trying to cure a symptom without understanding the actual sickness.

I am for people choosing whatever major they want and taking on as much debt as they feel comfortable. However, that freedom comes with the responsibility of dealing with the job prospects attached to that major and the financial burden of repaying those student loans.

Many students seem to think they should be able to choose a major with poor job prospects, take on a lot of debt, and then complain to government and society to fix their unemployment and debt woes. Well, this kind of policy is what that leads to. If people want the government to insure they have a job and absolve them of their debt, they should be prepared for a world where the government also dictates what they can study.

That is exactly the problem.

There is a generation of young people who grew up believing that education is a right rather a privilege and are now complaining that they spent all this time educating themselves and now there are no jobs.

You would be surprised how much airtime this kind of entitlement gets in the press in Denmark.

The sad truth is that education isn't what it used to be because educating one-self in a world where new information is added in ever increasing quantity is a never ending process. And so if you only think you need to really learn and study when you are at the university you couldn't be more wrong it starts in your childhood.

This unfortunately is lost on most.

You know, those students didn't get that idea out of thin air...

So the 15000 students will be forced to join the courses in demand and that will dry up due to increased supply. Then what? Will they keep moving courses around every year? What happens to the teaching faculty for some course that goes away and comes back?

According to the article students are being steered away from useless degrees for which there is no demand. This is (according to the some) a big problem here in the US. Too many students seek out a degree that offers no job prospects once they graduate.

Denmark have had a longstanding issue with too many students choosing humanistic fields and going straight out to unemployment.

It's a welcome decision.

It is at least a perceived longstanding issue, how large a problem is it really? How large an economic impact does it have? I suspect that the government did not actually investigate those factors.

Denmark's unemployment rate stands well below the EU average, better than Finland, France, Estonia, Belgium, and comparable to the Czech Republic.

Fixing possible non-problems with solutions that may have long-term negative consequences is usually bad policy. No one knows what the future of employment is going to look like.

It's not a non-problem its a big problem especially in a country where education is free.

Unemployment is low because the public sector is huge and take a lot of those people in. But a smaller and smaller percentage of the population pays for that and so they can't continue growing it. This is the main reason why they are cutting down.

With some of the highest taxes in the world and also free health care plus very liberal social welfare model this is unsustainable.

And you could might as well turn it around. How big a problem is it really that they minimize their approval of humanistic applicants.

Denmark is doing bad when it comes to building companies. It's very easy to start a company but growing it is extremely difficult and not financially as rewarding. They need more people to start doing stuff not just getting hired.

And then we haven't even touched on the more fundamental issue with the way Denmark thought and still think about education.

Sounds like a lot of vague arm-waving to me. How is Denmark's government debt to GDP ratio? Private debt to GDP ratio? Employment rate? Workforce participation rate? Economic growth?

How do all those things compare to its peer group? You can't look at Norway's petro-fuelled prosperity and decide they have the answers for you, look at nations with similar economic structures.

What evidence is there of actually unsustainable things in the economic model of Denmark? Where are the symptoms?

Legatum's prosperity ratings have Denmark at #6 in the world overall and one of the lowest in business startup costs in the world. (#2 in the world in the entrepreneurship and opportunity category!) By every objective measure it seems like a wonderful place to start a business!

Arm-waving?

I am from Denmark. are you? I had a company in Denmark with 70 people did you?

If you are really interested in answers to your own questions may I suggest you get educated on the matter before you decide to make any haste judgment on what I am telling you.

That is a poor appeal to your own authority. Thom, I'm Danish and entirely disagree with pretty much everything you've said in this thread regarding analysis and solutions, and I'm really sad that you discuss as if your words are gospel.

Buzz phrases like "... it's unsustainable!" really don't belong here. They're impossible to argue for or against as the data is really clouded.

Compared to who I was discussing with i HAVE authority.

Fine that you disagree now make your case.

I am just asking for evidence, and I looked into the answers to all the questions I listed above and saw either answers that seemed positive or neutral with respect to economic performance and the environment for entrepreneurship. The sentiments you expressed nearly every businessperson from every country expresses about their own nation.

I cannot properly judge what you are telling me without evidence that goes beyond your word, if you do not wish to furnish that is fine - I thought it might be an interesting exercise for both of us.

I am not from Denmark, but I also suppose that you have not run a corporation of similar size in every comparable nation in the world either, have you? The merits of a given economic model need to be evaluated relative to its peers. Neither you or I alone can be an authority on that.

Edit: And we should be fair here, shouldn't we? I did provide evidence in the form of both studies and employment indicators. I think I have demonstrated a reasonable interest in educating myself on the topic.

The reports show how easy it is to register your company not run it. I have tried that so take that for what you want.

How many other countries have you run a company in? (For the record, my count is 2.)

I have helped more than a hundred startups around the world. I have a fairly good idea about how things look like. Again take it for what you want.

From what I further read about this issue, was that in south denmark, more directly "University of Southern Denmark" was being cut by up to 50% in some courses, but the unemployment in that area only being about 5-10%.

What I don't understand is that the danish government didn't plan the cutdown with any specialists or people already working with the problem.

I am not sure what you mean. Danish government is cutting down primarily in the humanistic fields around 4000 chairs all in all. A lot of people who live in Copenhagen go to "University of Southern Denmark" it's not so important where it happens.

Denmark have way too many people in the humanistic field and they are rightfully cutting that down.

Also keep in mind. Education is 100% free plus you get subsidized when you take education.

I just think theirs a higher chance that you'll stay in the area where you took your education. so in that regard some areas might go short on workforce in a few years.

Apart from that you are all right. I get "paid" for studying, which of course comes at the cost of my earning being cut in half or well less for the rest of my life, do I decide to work in Denmark.

I think and have thought for a long time that you should lend the money instead, so that you won't have any people just studying to "leech". But maybe that's a discussing for elsewhere.

Everyone is moving to Copenhagen. Denmark is a small country. Even people who live in southern Denmark work in Copenhagen the drive is 1-2 hours max

I actually left for the US but I am more or less autodidact so I didn't leech :)

You are right that Denmark is a small country, I've been to USA too, and I talked to a lot of people working in cities 2-3 hours drive away. So by that yes.

However, and I might be somewhat wrong, but I've seen more people beginning to crowd around either Odense, Aarhus or Aalborg the last few years. This is however my own observation from students who finished their education that I've run into.

Yeah the bigger cities not just Copenhagen. But it doesn't change the fact that location isn't that big of a deal.

In Scandinavia, the universities are generally almost 100% tax-funded, so one might say it's right for the government to demand a higher "Return Of Investment". Surely there could also be private tuition-funded universities and/or tuition-funded programs in public universities for those who can and want to finance a decree in a purely humanistic field.

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