The Mound - #25 - Are Uni Degrees Useless?

Welcome to The Mound, a weekly newsletter in which we at Good One Creative pitch— for free — our solutions to the world’s problems.

In 2011 someone with a bachelor's degree could expect to earn 57% more in a week than someone who had not finished high school. In the years since that income premium has fallen - not precipitously - but enough for this “creative” to question the dollar value of learning to spell “precipitously”. 

The erosion of this income premium has been put down to supply and demand, with the yearly number of bachelor’s graduates increasing 35% over the past ten years. This is driving many to continue their studies - but is this what we want? People spending more time at university? Whilst this certainly benefits universities, we as a society have to consider why we send our young people there - and if it is still the most efficient means of accomplishing whatever we hope will occur there. To gain specialised knowledge? Perhaps. Whilst I’m sure many who seek an Arts degree do so with a wish to become a well-rounded, liberated intellect, I’m sure just as many know they need something on their resume - just a piece of paper - if they are to begin their lives in the world of work. 

To this day, consulting firms gobble up STEM students like salted almonds, rightly guessing at these geniuses' ability to handle a spreadsheet. Likewise we know elite athletes are readily accepted by so many types of organisations because of their soft skills - skills like leaping over brick walls and running until they can smell time. Whilst there may be an oversupply of bachelor degrees, we must also consider that maybe the employers of this world have a dwindling interest in bachelor degrees. 

Here’s how we fix it:

We read over and over that as AI threatens the future of junior associates worldwide, it's their soft skills that will save them, their ability to persist and work through complex problems. This is in effect what a degree is supposed to represent, it’s - at it’s most basic - a proof of one’s ability to stick around for a few years and to get the damn thing done. 

The obvious answer here tis to create something of a technical college for the junior associate of the future. Looking to where technology is headed and what employers want, there is an opportunity to institutionalise this - the working world's desire for grit. 

So we’re going to start a university - Good One University - and at GOU we offer just one degree: Problem Solving. Taking inspiration from the philosophising wrestlers of the ancient world, the curriculum itself will be a fusion of the arts degree and SEAL training week - so for three years you’ll be reading Wilde in the wild. Joyce in pain. There will be fire, illness, blisters, and Hegel - and one of the group assignments may in fact just be the Hunger Games. If this sounds unnecessary and cruel to you, then I’ll ask you to recall the last group assignment in which you took part and honestly ask yourself if the murder of a teammate might’ve been preferable to cooperation. Take it from the rest of society, if the dude who “totally forgot this was due” never makes it to 30, we’re okay with that. 

Like I mentioned, the degree goes for a minimum of three years - the last of which there is only a 50% chance of success, the cruel simplicity of which means the degree will garner a reputation for producing the sorts of people who can handle an interview, Deborah from Sales, or - yes - even a spreadsheet. 

You're welcome, Australia.