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Is higher education a scam now? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Kyrgizion@lemmy.world to c/goodoffmychest@lemmy.world
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I just realized the following:

-I am the first in my extended family to have a tertiary education. My parents and grandparents were laborers.

-Despite having two degrees, I've never been able to use either of them

-I spent the next twenty years working various customer service jobs while never actually rising through the ranks.

-Today I'm over 40 and looking at living paycheck to paycheck until the day I die or retire. No-one in my generation with half a brain expects retirement to just, y'know, be there when it's our turn. All of us are waking up to the reality that despite paying into SS for our entire working lives, we will never get even a fraction of what we put in back.

Given these circumstances, how am I supposed to convince my son to continue his education when he's finished with high school? I feel like a liar already for trying to convince him that if he just works hard at something it'll eventually pay off, because I have seen firsthand that this just isn't true?

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[-] 9point6@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Firstly, higher education should be free, or subsidised to the point of being as close to free as possible. If normal people have to choose between higher education and a huge debt, it's going to reasonably push people away who would otherwise want to continue learning.

The point of it should not be to get a job, that should just be a nice bonus. The point of it is to learn in depth about a subject you're interested in and ultimately develop valuable critical thinking and problem solving skills that don't really get exercised much in schools prior to higher education (at least where I'm from).

Given the reality is that it probably has to lead to a job in a lot of circumstances, there's still plenty of fields where the degree is necessary to participate, and many more where it's going to be a hurdle if someone doesn't have one. On the other hand, there're plenty of fields where someone would have no issues in skipping the degree and doing some kind of apprenticeship. So if future job prospects are the ultimate decider, what you should encourage really depends what your son wants to work as.

I finished my degree about a decade and a half ago and I think I've definitely benefited more from having done it than if I'd not IMO

this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2025
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