@Enzyme: But the fact that most kids don't go to uni is hardly a new situation
plenty more people go to uni these days, the problem is that they tend to study courses that, intellectually stimulating as they may be, have little to no employment prospects.

Now I agree that university should be about education, not training, but you can't spend three years doing philosophy and then act surprised when you are completely unemployable at the other end.

In the old days, when universities taught young men (and the occasional woman, should she prove unusually strong-minded) to broaden their minds and bask in knowledge on it's own merits they were pretty much exclusively teaching the sons of the aristocracy who already had careers laid out for them by Daddy or could use their influence to walk into a government job.

I'm quite glad this is no longer the case, though I share your wistful longing for a world where education is about bettering yourself not getting a foot in the door at KPMG.
( chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 17:44, Reply)