Is University Becoming Unnecessary?

Higher education’s battle with 21st-century life

I am a college student. For the last 2 and a half years, I have had a couple of impressions of what a university degree entails.

Beyond the obvious advantage I have by possessing a qualification that others may not, there are certain facts that I’ve had to contemplate. Facts that tell me a degree may not be the most essential asset one needs in order to land a secure job and life.

This may not be news, but university degrees are beginning to struggle to keep up with the pace of modern society. What I mean is, they are not serving the exact purpose they were designed for, especially in a civilization that is radically becoming digitized and permissive of one starting their own business in a couple of minutes.

When I was applying for college, the main concern in my mind was which university I would get into. Of course, I had to think about the benefits my degree could bring me in the long term, but my primary issue was which university would accept me.

Like most students, rather than worry about the implications of pursuing full-time higher education such as spending a lot of time on a particular course, my worry was which university was most suitable for me financially.

More than that, I had to spend more time thinking about how I would acquire sufficient funds to finance my living costs and how a student loan works, all before even applying to universities.

In other words, I’ve experienced more stress over a factor that is meant to be secondary instead of my degree which is meant to be the primary topic of concern: Where do I want to go with this qualification? Is it leading to a career that I truly want to do? Most of all, is it worth it?

Before I have the time to think about these questions carefully, I am oversaturated by anxiety over my grades, finances, and whether I’ll actually get into a college I’ve applied to. My future seems like a reflection of factors that appear to be out of my control.

Now, I have to mention that the financial aspect of studying a higher education degree is only limited to certain countries, such as the U.S. or the U.K. Without a doubt, a number of countries allow you to study a degree for free, such as in Europe, and this is extremely helpful as it’s one less setback. For the purpose of this article, however, I will stick to the concept of a university degree in general.

Let’s suppose that a student has just graduated. They’ve spent a considerable amount of time applying to jobs and if lucky, they’ve received a few interview requests. But while looking at the requirements of this job, the student observes a few points that seem bizarre and unattainable, namely the following:

• At least 4–5 years experience in (the chosen field).

Asking for experience from a student who has been told that the most important aspect of securing a job in the future is their degree and how well they perform it is like requesting that they turn water into wine. It’s not practically possible.

So this brings us back to the question: Is it worth it?

Is studying a full-time university degree worth it when the job I plan on acquiring in the near future asks that I have a few years of experience in the specific field I want to work in?

Beyond the dilemma of having enough experience is the reality in which we live at the moment. As a student in the 21st century, I am able to access the big wide web which allows me to use platforms and tools that help me create my own business in a short amount of time. Much shorter than the 3 or 4 years it takes me to complete a course that may not even prove sufficient for the job I seek.

How does the internet provide me with opportunities to start my own business?

• I am able to connect and network with people who work or would like to work in my chosen industry at the tip of my fingers, whether that be on social media tools like Facebook or LinkedIn or a dedicated platform like The Dots, allowing me to co-operate and collaborate with them.
• I am able to create a business plan, website, or portfolio that showcases my talent/experience.
• I am able to apply to jobs posted on numerous websites on a daily basis simply with a resume that I created.
• I am able to create an online store and sell directly to customers, whether that be products such as through Shopify or services such as through Upwork or Fiverr.
• I am able to create an e-mail newsletter that allows me to interact with like-minded people, and even turn it into a source of revenue, such as through Substack.

And much, much more.

Generally, I am able to use my own knowledge and passion for a certain topic or part of an industry to create my source of income, without acquiring a piece of paper that tells me I am eligible to do so.

Sticking to the subject of the internet helping you create your own opportunities, I can safely say that there is sufficient information available on learning platforms — even ones we use on a daily basis for leisure, such as YouTube — to allow us to start creating revenue from what we love to do.

Whether that be through teaching a certain skill or mindset or allowing me to hear first-hand accounts of how one succeeded in landing a specific job or goes about approaching different opportunities, it is a luxury that was not available to us just a few years ago.

To explain why university degrees are not the most beneficial asset to own in order to kickstart one’s career, we could go back in time and see why universities were created in the first place.

Since 1088 A.D., universities had started out as groups of students who would pay “learned men” to give them the knowledge they sought. Doesn’t sound that different to their purpose today, right? We pay individuals who we consider to be learned in a particular field to teach us their knowledge.

If we compare the past with now, we see that society has advanced in terms of ideas and values. Our level of technology has reached a point where it would need us to exist for it to exist, and the cyber world has been gradually replacing the physical world. The first place an ordinary student would go to search for a job today would be Google, rather than looking out for a job vacancy on a company’s window.

University itself, as part of education more generally, has been able to become fully online. Homeschooling has been the result of the same, if not more information than what traditional schools teach being fully accessible online, whether free or for a much lesser price.

People are starting to question the benefits that partaking in traditional full-time education has promised to bring us for many centuries. As with other elements like politics and religion, education forms a part of our lives that can easily be changed from one minute to the next, unable to remain static if our beliefs change.

With aspects of our everyday lives changing due to current technology, including the way we interact with one another, the way we access information, the way we are able to create income revenues, and the way we begin to view society and the world at large, our perception of education should align accordingly.

In a world that allows us to access information and apply to jobs in the blink of an eye, I do not see why waiting for a duration of years should become an acceptable form of acquiring knowledge. More than that, how it should be the sole qualification that allows one to practice what they are either skilled in or passionate about.

The rapid pace of digital society, mixed with our human quality of creativity, means that we are capable of coming up with new ways of doing things. Education, part of the process of sharing and publishing information with one another, appears to be going through a renovation. A renovation that may be silent now, but will lead to a revolutionary way of perceiving our capabilities and contribution to society in the near future.

Rather than learning information for the sake of a long-term, uncertain benefit from a degree, it can be learned for implementing quick and efficient changes in one’s life and one’s community as a whole.

Thank you so much for reading.

What do you think of higher education in the digital age? Can you see it progressing along with the latest developments? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!