Have we too many third level students?

Interesting programme on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow.

The series challenges received wisdom.

The Case Against Education
Thought Cages
Education is often seen as a panacea for a liberal civilised society: the more, the better. But what if we’re wrong? What if the desire to deliver higher education to as many people as possible is actually making society less fair?

Economist Bryan Caplan poked a hornet’s nest recently with his book “The Case Against Education”. It argued passionately that higher education has become a mere signalling exercise for employers – one which rewarded rote-learning conformism and threw anyone with less than a 2:1 on the scrapheap.

Much admired – and much criticised – Caplan’s book was a call-to-arms for an end to a futile, economically-crippling education arms-race. His solution? Simply pull funding for almost all higher education until its social worth was fully proven.

Advertising guru and behaviourist Rory Sutherland is joined in studio by the Executive Director of the Education Policy Institute Natalie Perera - and down the line by Bryan Caplan himself – to assess one of liberal society’s most sacred cows.

Produced by Steven Rajam for BBC Wales
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Education is often seen as a panacea for a liberal civilised society: the more, the better. But what if we’re wrong? What if the desire to deliver higher education to as many people as possible is actually making society less fair?
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Its probably the case that there are too many third level institutions and students in third level. However i completely disagree with the above hypothesis afterall the most advanced societies on the planet also have the best universities. Its obviously the case that advanced societies need higher level education in order to be advanced. In order to have smart phones we need smart people in universities studying the science behind this advancement. However there is an awful lot of rubbish now being "studied" in higher level institutions that has little value to society
 
I don't see how your post disagrees with the link Brendan quoted. Yes, we need technical and science based universities but do we need so many meaningless degrees? There are some companies which have a policy of requiring a third level degree to become a senior executive. If someone has worked there for 20 years and is clearly the best candidate why on earth should they be excluded from promotion because they don't have a degree in English Literature?
 
The people who created smart phones most likely never went to universities, the advancement of society is created by the risk takers based upon their dreams and asperations,
 
you need the dream first to advance society there are many other dreamers who never went to universities, your dreams and ideas can be developed by others, universities have there place also, I taught the smart phone was developed by someone else apologies for that, I am sure you would agree also,
 

I think it depends. Sometimes the idea is the hard part and for that you may not need technical training.
Sometimes the idea is obvious and the hard part is the realisation... thats where you need trained engineers, scientists etc from stem courses.

These days that means university as companies dont train people to that level from scratch anymore.

I do think we are sending too many people to third level and to the wrong types of courses.
 
I always feel the ideas and dreams are in the future terms and universities are in the present, it's most likely the reason all businesses fail eventually, I would also agree, to many people go to college,
 
BilliamD75 said:
I always feel the ideas and dreams are in the future terms and universities are in the present, it's most likely the reason all businesses fail eventually, I would also agree, to many people go to college,
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not sure what you are talking about here, surely there were plenty of ideas and dreams in the past also , it could also be the case that there were more dreamers and idealists in the past than there will be in the future as the future is unknowable.
 
Yes of course there were plenty of dreams and ideas in the past, it's those ideas that have brought human advancement to the present day and future ideas and dreams will bring human advancement to the next level based upon past ideas and dreams, just making the point that not all dreamers go to college
 
It makes perfect sense, Dreams and ideas are just that until they become reality it's never instantaneous making it part of the future, business that stand still are superceded by future advancement in their fields being the creator or inventor maybe dies and the business eventually goes, colleges work on the development of the ideas and dreams making it the present terms, both have their place in society but the dream and ideas must come first.
 
No, it still makes no sense. Dreams don't inherently have a tense. Just like universities have been around for centuries, and will continue to exist for centuries to come, people have always dreamt. DaVinci dreamt about manned flight for example, as did many others since, the Wright brothers finally made it reality, but that's all still in the past.

If you're trying to say nothing new can be developed without someone thinking of it first, bar the occasional happy accident such as teflon or cyanoacrylate, with a linear timeline, that's just fundamental. I don't see how that has any effect on businesses failing.
 
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Universities have been around for centuries, the human taught process has been, ie dreams ideas have been around since human evolution began, the human taught process comes first, there is nothing linear about the process, the devinci and Wright brother's example is not valid, I dream humanity will time travel to distant galaxies in the future, it doesn't mean I will develop the technology now to do it but humanity over time will develop it, the human taught process comes first though, a business starts from its creator and when the creator leaves for whatever reason the business will decline over time however sometimes the new owners with the aid of New technology will advance the business but ultimately it will fail, the human taught process will be stuck in the present, I am sure you would agree
 
BilliamD75 said:
Universities have been around for centuries, the human taught process has been, ie dreams ideas have been around since human evolution began, the human taught process comes first, there is nothing linear about the process,
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Thought process for a start. So if the thought process comes first, you are agreeing that it is linear? The idea comes before the development which in turn comes before the finished article?

BilliamD75 said:
the devinci and Wright brother's example is not valid
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Why not? Because the Wright brothers had no relevant formal education and beat those with it to the punch? Or something to do with their dreams being in the past?

BilliamD75 said:
I dream humanity will time travel to distant galaxies in the future, it doesn't mean I will develop the technology now to do it but humanity over time will develop it,
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Bit of a sideline, but I'm not convinced that will ever be possible.

BilliamD75 said:
a business starts from its creator and when the creator leaves for whatever reason the business will decline over time however sometimes the new owners with the aid of New technology will advance the business but ultimately it will fail,
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Given long enough, and the probability of human extinction that's almost certainly true, but I'm failing to see how it relates to number in 3rd level. There are many businesses that have survived hundreds of years, many that have gone on to far exceed the achievements of their founders, many, many more don't make it past year 2. The thoughts or dreams of a founder have a level of influence over the short term, but little or none on the long term success of multi-generational companies they have formed.

BilliamD75 said:
the human taught process will be stuck in the present, I am sure you would agree
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Absolutely not. Human thought is only constrained by the imagination and experience of the subject, is vastly different from person to person and does not stand still, but evolves continuously. Visionaries dream of posibilities that may take weeks or hundreds of year to come to fruition. It's untrue to state their thought process is stuck in their present.
 
The taught process is stuck in the present when dealing in third level that's what I am and have said, human dreams and ideas are in the future as they have not been created yet,
 
BilliamD75 said:
The taught process is stuck in the present when dealing in third level that's what I am and have said,
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Anything 'taught' has to be in the past by definition, present tense would be teaching.

QUOTE="BilliamD75, post: 1591094, member: 105931"]human dreams and ideas are in the future as they have not been created yet,[/QUOTE]

Dreams and ideas occur all the time, but future dreams havn't been dreamt yet. New developments or inventions that may result from dereams or ideas past or present may well occor in the future, but that's a different matter entirely.

Are you using the word dream to refer to an advancement or invention? Regardless, it's hardly newsworthy to suggest that stuff that hasn't been invented yet might be invented in the future rather than the past.
 
Yes teaching is the present, ie college that's what I have been saying, you can say you have been taught the teaching in a past sense, i am saying the human taught process ie dreams and ideas have to come first, you said it yourself davinci dreamt of maned flight and 400 years later the wright brother's brought that dream to reality, the taught process bridged that gap, everything we know comes from the taught process which is the future,, that's just my opinion
 
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