Your goals in life and your diploma

For a long time I bought into the currently dominant story with which governments are enforcing change in university finances. That is, I subscribed to the view that the universities should be used 1) to train people who can contribute to GDP, or 2) to train people who can do research on generally important topics, such as engineering, water cleaning, heart and lung diseases, etc.

I think this was a mistake and it was caused by a very one-sided view of things. Here is the stuff left out: the most often targeted courses and programmes for cuts are Humanities and Arts programmes. Critiques say that people finishing with such diplomas very often don't get jobs in the field in which they were trained. Thus, they spend years in the uni system, which is costly to the government, even if people pay high tuition fees.

But here is the deal. If a person is interested in a field, that means that he or she thinks the field important. If then that person studies the field she probably enjoys what she does. Even if she does not get a job in that field, a proper training might very well be necessary for properly enjoying works in that field (this is definitely true of literature, painting, music, but probably also of many other things). At the same time, many fields in the Humanities (teaching, pedagogy, linguistics) have lots of practical applications and there is need for well trained people in these fields.

Now, even if the people who received such training didn't get a job with it, it is very possible that 1) they acquired useful skills, and 2) that they can practice something that they like. Since money is not the only and most important thing for many of us, one can live a nice life with an average job, if one can at the same time do things in one's free time which one likes or loves. If the education has enabled one to do this in a fulfilling manner then it has bettered that person's life, and thereby also of those around her.

I think the main mistake that can lead us to forget that this might be a worthy goal of education in itself is that often in the media such people are represented as somehow having failed - they went to uni but they don't earn the big bucks. But many of us know since a long time: that's not necessarily what one wants to study for.