As the exam season is upon us, millions of young people around the globe will be asking themselves that generations of adults before them have asked – should they go onto further education at a university, or should they get out into the big wide world?
The importance of higher academia has changed and altered according to the society in which you have grown up. In many poorer, developing countries, academic qualifications are a stable way out of poverty. For wealthier, more established economies, it is not necessarily the best route. In fact, the preponderance of newer, ‘media’ style university degrees have been accused of devaluing education.
Gaining credentials and qualifications in certain areas
There are certain areas of expertise where pursuing an academic career is essential. These tend to be a core disciplines such as medicine, engineering, mathematics and the law, in which subject matter is shrouded in knowledge, and progressing in these areas is only possible once you have a firm understanding of the very foundation of your subject matter.
These subjects can also prove to be a useful segway into other professions. From government positions in civil service to grant management, gaining a strong academic background proves that you have the intellectual abilities required for critical and nuanced thinking. Not to mention the opportunities for networking with like minded people who will probably be climbing various professional ladders alongside you for the next few decades.
An expensive waste of 3-4 years, or an investment in your future?
An alternative view of university education though is that it could be an expensive waster of several years, particularly if you are not academically minded. While going to university is usually presented as a panacea of achievement, there is a growing movement to recognizing and understanding that success does not necessarily come from the pages of a book.
This view is further underscored by the increasingly expensive bills associated with going to university. In the UK the average cost is about £50,000 for a three year course. In the States, the same time period would cost the average student about $90,000 depending on where you go.
The majority of students fund this through student loans, which means that once they are qualified, they enter the world of working with a massive debt. And this is before they have even considered saving up for a mortgage. The financial burden of graduating from university will only be alleviated by finding a well paid career path afterwards, and there is no guarantee that would happen.
The benefits of the university of life
More and more intelligent, motivated individuals are realizing that the university of life will give them a much faster, better and more rewarding start in life than academia. In a world in which academia is being weaponized by politicians and ideologies, eroding the importance of individual and critical thinking, taking the pathway of the university of life gives you a significant head start on setting out in the real world. By the time your contemporaries graduate and launch themselves on the job market, you could already have made great strides forward in establishing yourself in life.
What the university of life teaches you in independence and self reliance. It is up to you to get out onto the market and prove your worth over and above the accepted norms. This allows for some excellent ‘out of the box’ thinking, which in itself will position you well ahead of your peers.
And most importantly, you will not end up with a debt that will burden you for the rest of your life.
