Yeah okay but OP is asking why it costs money to become smarter. The answer is: it doesn’t. But it does cost money to get help with getting smarter and to get a certificate that you did get smarter. And that does indeed cost more than it should in many places
I guarantee you, knowledge means something. You need the degree to get the job, but if you don’t know your ass for your elbow, that entry level job is as far as you are going to go. If you want a promotion and pay raise, you need to know your shit.
In healthcare, yes. An IT guy, a plumber, an analyst, no. Legal and healthcare are the only two fields I can think of right now that a person with enough knowledge couldn’t enter without a diploma.
But those two fields make up what, 1 percent?
Also, I don’t need to go to europe, because I’m already there.
There are many other fields that require a degree. Engineering, architecture, chemistry, biology, etc.
In some of those fields you can find some jobs which you can do without the degree, but the vast majority do require it.
I hire people and, to be fair, most people with a degree do not qualify as valid for certain jobs. But in that case is lack of knowledge. In my case I’d rather have someone without degree but with a deep knowledge; but those are very hard to find.
Ok, first off, I don’t give a shit who you are or what you do, that’s not what this is about and unless your job has to do with looking at such topics in a scientific and non subjective way, which I did not read from you, your opinion matters just as much as anyone elses, just like mine.
Coming back to nicer grounds, yes, for the fields you have mentioned, that’s absolutely true. Those fields are quite critical and in my opinion should be gated by a diploma. You don’t just get to call yourself and architect and draft a building that collapses. Same with a chemist and accidentally poisoning the groundwater or being a scientist in general and wasting a lot of time and money, and so on. Also, please notice how I said I couldn’t think of any more, just genuinely low effort, was not meaning to say there weren’t.
I think that generally any job that has no immediate severe repercussions and where your employer can reasonably give you a probabtion period, you can just go ahead and do with enough knowledge. Such include (I’m only listing exotic ones, since that’s what we’re seemingly focusing on in this thread):
Technical writer
Salesperson
Consultant
Data Analyst
Project Manager
And in europe there is literally no gate to entry to lower level jobs like technical support or warehouse. Keep in mind that the vast majority of workers are not in the position to be a lawyer or a scientist.
But even with all that considered, my point still stands: The jobs you can’t do without a diploma, that’s like 1% of jobs. (Likely incorrect percentage)
Aaaand on top of that, when you’re in europe, you don’t even really have to go to uni. Sure, there are lectures you need to technically be present for, but you can just go, say you’re there, then leave. Then you have to pay like in the lower end of a few thousand bucks, which the university will even just straight up give to you if you’re poor and you can just take your exams. I don’t see nothing wrong with the exams, they’re good in any way.
What’s the problem here is the privatization of job opportunities, which for all intents and purposes doesn’t exist on this side of the lake. This is a uniquely american problem we’re talking about here.
The discussion was about the importance of a degree into finding a job. I hire people to work in research to develop novel drugs. I generally do not care whether they have a degree or not, but the degree does generally come with a level of preparation on the subject and a level of reasoning skills which are not easy to develop without formal training/working in the field. I did some times favor people without a degree over people with a PhD because they felt better candidates to me. Sometimes this is not possible due to bureaucracy. If you prefer, I do not actually hire people; I select people that should be hired with grant money I obtained to conduct certain research jobs.
I don’t know how it works in the US, but to get a job in sales or as a project manager a degree is not required where I live. Candidates with a degree may be favoured by a company, but there is no law enforcing the requirement for a degree. And I do know many people working those jobs without a degree.
Regarding the fact that you don’t need to go to university in Europe. I’m not really sure if I understand, I guess you mean it is not compulsory to attend lectures. I studied in Italy, there this was the case: all lectures were absolutely discretionary and you could finish your degree without attending a single one. That is except experimental stuff, which indeed you’d need to attend. You could theoretically just study from the books and pass all the exams and get your degree. However, lectures are very good for understanding what you’re studying, most people were attending all lectures anyway. The fact that those are optional is useful if some days you can not attend for whatever reason, whether you’re working or busy in some other way.
This, however, is not the case throughout Europe. I live in Spain now, where attendance of lectures is compulsory. You do not get a degree unless you attend a specified percentage of the lectures. Many other countries in Europe follow this system.
In some countries in Europe you do not pay to attend university. In others you do have to pay, it’s generally a few thousand euros per year. In most countries you can get scholarships and not have to pay such fees or even get a salary for studying.
I believe we’re just misunderstanding each other. I do agree, for many jobs a degree is not necessary. But for many other jobs it is, or at least some kind of technical training. I believe the amount of jobs who do require some kind of certificate, at least in Europe, is higher than 1%.
An electrician will be required a certificate to handle home installations and to ensure he knows what the normative is. A lathe operator will require a certificate which ensures he will not harm himself. A nurse now requires a degree, it used to be just a specific formation.
Many other jobs are available who do not require a degree.
I’m not really sure to what you refer to as privatisation of job opportunities.
You don’t need to remind me what the discussion was about. It was not only about getting a job without a degree, but also about the fact that you have to pay for that degree, as per the title of the post.
The next paragraph can be understood very emotionally. I mean this literally, I do not have bad feelings towards you.
You as an employer do not represent the job market, nor does me being one. Not even in our respective fields. This is irrelevant information and likely told to make yourself look more qualified than you are, which is why I’m bitching about it.
I didn’t even read your first paragraph completely; that’s how irrelevant I find this to be. I don’t need to know your field, or what the hell you do within that field.
If you had a background in this area, like analytics, it would be a different situation, but that’s not what you told me. Your statement, “I hire anybody, as long as they’re qualified,” doesn’t change the job market.
What I have typed here is completely without relevance to the discussion, such as was your attempt to highlight a supposed competency on this topic.
If your credentials are so important to you: Why don’t you talk about being a student, maybe even a lecturer, yourself?
That’s at least midly relevant, still pretentious though.
Slidin my toe back off the battleground:
I don’t know how it works in the us…
Since you live in spain, yeah, that is exactly what I said. Could I maybe dm you about spain? I feel we have certain commonalities and I have contemplated moving there and would like to ask about it.
Regarding uni, yes that is what I meant, badly phrased. I am also talking specifically about the entirety of the EU, since you are free to move and go to any university within it (for now). So it doesn’t really matter that you can’t go study as freely in spain as in germany, you can just go study in germany. Arguments could be made about accessibility, but you can still just go ahead and do that, and it’s not even terribly expensive.
Yes, lectures can be very good. Attendance, more often than not, does not mean that you need to stay til the end, since you get checked at the start of the lecture.
Now, wether we agree or not. On a basis yes. You previously said that for the vast majority of jobs you need a degree. Now you were saying for about half you need a certificate. Certificate ≠ degree. A technical certificate is a type of degree, but a certificate not so necessarily. That is besides the fact that by degree, the general public means a bachelor’s degree and up. Those are two very different documents, and you can get a certificate, such which an electrician requires, in inexpensive ways, even illegally. You don’t necessarily have that choice as a law student.
I do not agree that a simple certificate creates the situation OP is trying to stay out of, which is to pay for education.
I do not agree that the number of jobs requiring a diploma, based on the job market and the skill level of a person, is the majority.
If you feel the same way, then I feel you contradict yourself linguistically, but yes we would agree.
I didn’t mean one percent literally, just a small minority. Using exact numbers figuratively is misleading, so I edited my comment shortly before your answer — probably too late. But hey, that’s the average effort of a post online, amirite?
The real number of people in regulated professions is 22% of the EU workforce. Now consider, that people like electricians are counted here, not just people with a degree. If we were to take those out, that would be even less.
Take out the rest too because of the absolute irrelevance, since in the EU education is so damn cheap, but that’s a different point altogether.
About the privatization of education:
If you have to pay 10k strong monies a year to get a workable diploma, then lock every job behind a degree, that is privatization of job opportunities. This is an ongoing issue in the USA, land of the indebted.
On the first part, do not worry; I understand the perspective. I just meant to show how a degree may not be as relevant as other things with my personal experience.
If you want information regarding Spain, feel free to text me. I’m new in Lemmy and never had private messages, but I guess I should get a notification and figure it out.
We clearly misunderstood each other, I did not mean to say in the majority of jobs you need a degree. I was initially just pointing out there is a significant amount of careers in which a degree is in fact required. We do indeed agree on all points as far as I can see.
Now, regarding this supposed privatisation of job opportunities. I am very much aware of the problems with student debt in the US. It is something extremely sad. What is unclear to me is why would this be a privatisation?
I’d rather imagine this leads to further division in social classes i.e. rich people who can afford degrees can access more “palatable” jobs. But I say this without really knowing much of how jobs work now in the US.
I’d imagine this would lead to only a small percentage of the US population having a degree, but as far as I can see over 50% of US population has one. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment)
As such I can imagine in the US as well the degree would be treated as something cheap and common.
I’d imagine this would lead to many jobs in many sectors favouring people with a degree over people who do not have one. As such I can imagine that paying for education in the US could probably lead to better job opportunities. This would be regardless the fact that a degree is required for a certain job or not. It is unclear to me whether people who had to take debt for a degree and get an unspecialised job are able to pay back the debt.
Now, it is a bit sad to talk about degrees and education only under the aspect of job seeking. A degree is a wonderful way to learn things and improve ones thinking skills. Free education is amazing because of this: we all benefit from everyone around being more informed and able to improve things. Widespread education does significantly improve the lives of everyone in a country, regardless of the fact that what one studies is actually useful for a job or not.
There’s literally an entire demographic of americans that are having trouble with getting a job because they don’t have certification and it’s a nationwide problem causing insane amounts of debt for the general population, so unless there’s some kind of joke about the american healthcare system in there, then I don’t get what you’re saying.
Check out this pedantic guy over here. Just to be clear, knowledge means shit, it’s the diploma that counts
Yeah okay but OP is asking why it costs money to become smarter. The answer is: it doesn’t. But it does cost money to get help with getting smarter and to get a certificate that you did get smarter. And that does indeed cost more than it should in many places
I guarantee you, knowledge means something. You need the degree to get the job, but if you don’t know your ass for your elbow, that entry level job is as far as you are going to go. If you want a promotion and pay raise, you need to know your shit.
… in america.
Everywhere. You can’t go to Europe and claim to be a doctor cause you read all the books for free
In healthcare, yes. An IT guy, a plumber, an analyst, no. Legal and healthcare are the only two fields I can think of right now that a person with enough knowledge couldn’t enter without a diploma.
But those two fields make up what, 1 percent?
Also, I don’t need to go to europe, because I’m already there.
There are many other fields that require a degree. Engineering, architecture, chemistry, biology, etc. In some of those fields you can find some jobs which you can do without the degree, but the vast majority do require it.
I hire people and, to be fair, most people with a degree do not qualify as valid for certain jobs. But in that case is lack of knowledge. In my case I’d rather have someone without degree but with a deep knowledge; but those are very hard to find.
Ok, first off, I don’t give a shit who you are or what you do, that’s not what this is about and unless your job has to do with looking at such topics in a scientific and non subjective way, which I did not read from you, your opinion matters just as much as anyone elses, just like mine.
Coming back to nicer grounds, yes, for the fields you have mentioned, that’s absolutely true. Those fields are quite critical and in my opinion should be gated by a diploma. You don’t just get to call yourself and architect and draft a building that collapses. Same with a chemist and accidentally poisoning the groundwater or being a scientist in general and wasting a lot of time and money, and so on. Also, please notice how I said I couldn’t think of any more, just genuinely low effort, was not meaning to say there weren’t.
I think that generally any job that has no immediate severe repercussions and where your employer can reasonably give you a probabtion period, you can just go ahead and do with enough knowledge. Such include (I’m only listing exotic ones, since that’s what we’re seemingly focusing on in this thread):
Technical writer
Salesperson
Consultant
Data Analyst
Project Manager
And in europe there is literally no gate to entry to lower level jobs like technical support or warehouse. Keep in mind that the vast majority of workers are not in the position to be a lawyer or a scientist.
But even with all that considered, my point still stands: The jobs you can’t do without a diploma, that’s like 1% of jobs. (Likely incorrect percentage)
Aaaand on top of that, when you’re in europe, you don’t even really have to go to uni. Sure, there are lectures you need to technically be present for, but you can just go, say you’re there, then leave. Then you have to pay like in the lower end of a few thousand bucks, which the university will even just straight up give to you if you’re poor and you can just take your exams. I don’t see nothing wrong with the exams, they’re good in any way.
What’s the problem here is the privatization of job opportunities, which for all intents and purposes doesn’t exist on this side of the lake. This is a uniquely american problem we’re talking about here.
I hIrE pEoPlE
The discussion was about the importance of a degree into finding a job. I hire people to work in research to develop novel drugs. I generally do not care whether they have a degree or not, but the degree does generally come with a level of preparation on the subject and a level of reasoning skills which are not easy to develop without formal training/working in the field. I did some times favor people without a degree over people with a PhD because they felt better candidates to me. Sometimes this is not possible due to bureaucracy. If you prefer, I do not actually hire people; I select people that should be hired with grant money I obtained to conduct certain research jobs.
I don’t know how it works in the US, but to get a job in sales or as a project manager a degree is not required where I live. Candidates with a degree may be favoured by a company, but there is no law enforcing the requirement for a degree. And I do know many people working those jobs without a degree.
Regarding the fact that you don’t need to go to university in Europe. I’m not really sure if I understand, I guess you mean it is not compulsory to attend lectures. I studied in Italy, there this was the case: all lectures were absolutely discretionary and you could finish your degree without attending a single one. That is except experimental stuff, which indeed you’d need to attend. You could theoretically just study from the books and pass all the exams and get your degree. However, lectures are very good for understanding what you’re studying, most people were attending all lectures anyway. The fact that those are optional is useful if some days you can not attend for whatever reason, whether you’re working or busy in some other way. This, however, is not the case throughout Europe. I live in Spain now, where attendance of lectures is compulsory. You do not get a degree unless you attend a specified percentage of the lectures. Many other countries in Europe follow this system.
In some countries in Europe you do not pay to attend university. In others you do have to pay, it’s generally a few thousand euros per year. In most countries you can get scholarships and not have to pay such fees or even get a salary for studying.
I believe we’re just misunderstanding each other. I do agree, for many jobs a degree is not necessary. But for many other jobs it is, or at least some kind of technical training. I believe the amount of jobs who do require some kind of certificate, at least in Europe, is higher than 1%. An electrician will be required a certificate to handle home installations and to ensure he knows what the normative is. A lathe operator will require a certificate which ensures he will not harm himself. A nurse now requires a degree, it used to be just a specific formation. Many other jobs are available who do not require a degree.
I’m not really sure to what you refer to as privatisation of job opportunities.
You don’t need to remind me what the discussion was about. It was not only about getting a job without a degree, but also about the fact that you have to pay for that degree, as per the title of the post.
The next paragraph can be understood very emotionally. I mean this literally, I do not have bad feelings towards you.
You as an employer do not represent the job market, nor does me being one. Not even in our respective fields. This is irrelevant information and likely told to make yourself look more qualified than you are, which is why I’m bitching about it.
I didn’t even read your first paragraph completely; that’s how irrelevant I find this to be. I don’t need to know your field, or what the hell you do within that field.
If you had a background in this area, like analytics, it would be a different situation, but that’s not what you told me. Your statement, “I hire anybody, as long as they’re qualified,” doesn’t change the job market.
What I have typed here is completely without relevance to the discussion, such as was your attempt to highlight a supposed competency on this topic.
If your credentials are so important to you: Why don’t you talk about being a student, maybe even a lecturer, yourself?
That’s at least midly relevant, still pretentious though.
Slidin my toe back off the battleground:
Since you live in spain, yeah, that is exactly what I said. Could I maybe dm you about spain? I feel we have certain commonalities and I have contemplated moving there and would like to ask about it.
Regarding uni, yes that is what I meant, badly phrased. I am also talking specifically about the entirety of the EU, since you are free to move and go to any university within it (for now). So it doesn’t really matter that you can’t go study as freely in spain as in germany, you can just go study in germany. Arguments could be made about accessibility, but you can still just go ahead and do that, and it’s not even terribly expensive. Yes, lectures can be very good. Attendance, more often than not, does not mean that you need to stay til the end, since you get checked at the start of the lecture.
Now, wether we agree or not. On a basis yes. You previously said that for the vast majority of jobs you need a degree. Now you were saying for about half you need a certificate. Certificate ≠ degree. A technical certificate is a type of degree, but a certificate not so necessarily. That is besides the fact that by degree, the general public means a bachelor’s degree and up. Those are two very different documents, and you can get a certificate, such which an electrician requires, in inexpensive ways, even illegally. You don’t necessarily have that choice as a law student.
I do not agree that a simple certificate creates the situation OP is trying to stay out of, which is to pay for education.
I do not agree that the number of jobs requiring a diploma, based on the job market and the skill level of a person, is the majority.
If you feel the same way, then I feel you contradict yourself linguistically, but yes we would agree.
I didn’t mean one percent literally, just a small minority. Using exact numbers figuratively is misleading, so I edited my comment shortly before your answer — probably too late. But hey, that’s the average effort of a post online, amirite?
The real number of people in regulated professions is 22% of the EU workforce. Now consider, that people like electricians are counted here, not just people with a degree. If we were to take those out, that would be even less.
Take out the rest too because of the absolute irrelevance, since in the EU education is so damn cheap, but that’s a different point altogether.
About the privatization of education: If you have to pay 10k strong monies a year to get a workable diploma, then lock every job behind a degree, that is privatization of job opportunities. This is an ongoing issue in the USA, land of the indebted.
On the first part, do not worry; I understand the perspective. I just meant to show how a degree may not be as relevant as other things with my personal experience.
If you want information regarding Spain, feel free to text me. I’m new in Lemmy and never had private messages, but I guess I should get a notification and figure it out.
We clearly misunderstood each other, I did not mean to say in the majority of jobs you need a degree. I was initially just pointing out there is a significant amount of careers in which a degree is in fact required. We do indeed agree on all points as far as I can see.
Now, regarding this supposed privatisation of job opportunities. I am very much aware of the problems with student debt in the US. It is something extremely sad. What is unclear to me is why would this be a privatisation?
I’d rather imagine this leads to further division in social classes i.e. rich people who can afford degrees can access more “palatable” jobs. But I say this without really knowing much of how jobs work now in the US. I’d imagine this would lead to only a small percentage of the US population having a degree, but as far as I can see over 50% of US population has one. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment)
As such I can imagine in the US as well the degree would be treated as something cheap and common. I’d imagine this would lead to many jobs in many sectors favouring people with a degree over people who do not have one. As such I can imagine that paying for education in the US could probably lead to better job opportunities. This would be regardless the fact that a degree is required for a certain job or not. It is unclear to me whether people who had to take debt for a degree and get an unspecialised job are able to pay back the debt.
Now, it is a bit sad to talk about degrees and education only under the aspect of job seeking. A degree is a wonderful way to learn things and improve ones thinking skills. Free education is amazing because of this: we all benefit from everyone around being more informed and able to improve things. Widespread education does significantly improve the lives of everyone in a country, regardless of the fact that what one studies is actually useful for a job or not.
Nah, but you can do that in America.
There’s literally an entire demographic of americans that are having trouble with getting a job because they don’t have certification and it’s a nationwide problem causing insane amounts of debt for the general population, so unless there’s some kind of joke about the american healthcare system in there, then I don’t get what you’re saying.
I’m just saying there’s been a lot of people pretending to be doctors throughout America’s history.
Got it.
Only when you are talking about earning money. The smartest people out there are the ditch diggers and factory folk.
And what exactly would those two very specific demographics qualify as being smart?