The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

Universities aren't tech schools; their purpose is not job training.

My understanding is that employers used to be comfortable providing pretty extensive job training, and they probably should start doing that again. IMHO, it's wishful thinking to expect any kind of school to produce new grads that can "walk in the door with the needed skills," especially in a field as diverse as software engineering.

"University is a place where teachers and students who are interested in a field meet to learn and research together."

One of the most enriching classes I took was The Art of Listening to Music.

It was a grand tour through music history and practice up until the early 20th century. I learned how to understand the compositional elements that go into making music, and while the class was biased towards western classical music, by the time the quarter was over I found I had an appreciation for an incredibly wide variety of music, whereas prior I listened to only a few genres.

> I'd say outside of STEM there really isn't a need for most to go to a University campus,

Have you ever met someone who can do 0(ish) delay translation between languages? With no accent? A non-university program to teach that would end up looking like a university. To do it properly the translator needs deep cultural understanding of the target language, professional training in pronunciation, and a lot of practice.

And why are arts programs useless? Sure art collectives can form and group buy resources, hire models, pay for trips to destinations, and bring in more experienced artists to help teach technique, but at some point again you've recreated a university.

None of this even goes into the value of the core classes. Having people educated about their own country's history, and about world history, having an understanding of economic systems, geopolitics, and mathematics, these are all worthwhile endeavors. A University offers are curated selection of courses and subjects, with pedological methods that have, presumably, been tested over time (some over centuries!) to be effective.

Is the system perfect? Heck no, spiraling costs are evidence of that, but throwing away a system that has, at minimum, allowed for the past 2 centuries of dramatic growth of civilization, seems a bit hasty.

Universities that derive much of their value for being a proxy for some combination of intelligence/privilege can keep their value going into the future because they’ll likely remain just as selective if not more so over time. It’s the not-particularly-selective, small private colleges and universities which have their business model under threat, IMO