The value of college education
Last week Ernst & Young, one of the largest global companies announced they will NOT require college degrees for new hires, but instead will test all applicants for their knowledge and skills because today there are many college graduates with degrees but not skills. According to several people who commented on this announcement, this is only the beginning of a new trend because many global companies will follow this.
One senior manager explained to the newspapers: “For the past few years, we hired many degreed graduates with obsoleted skills, they could not do the required works. When the market need to have hundred thousands of workers with the latest skills such as cloud computing, big data analysis, cyber security, the universities did not pay attention to our need but continue with what they have been doing in the past twenty years? If they cannot support us, do you think we care about hiring our workers with degree from those schools? When we need people with the latest skills, we will hire anyone who can do the jobs, with or without the degrees. We need to get the works done by people who can do that, regardless where they come from.”
The fact is if you look at most university programs, few have made any change in the past few years although technology has made a quantum leap. The reason is either universities do not know, or do not care about the market needs. Most faculties are comfortable with their positions, many have been educated twenty or thirty years ago and without additional training, what they know are obsolete. A few years ago when I taught software engineering in Asia, I found that computer students have to spend three years in programming classes. I asked the Chairman why such a heavy burden on students when there are many things they should learn besides programming. He explained: “Most of our faculty know programming languages well and that is all they teach. Of courses, technology changes but we do not have people who can teach the new things. That is all we know.”
Even when we have people who can teach new things, it is still difficult to change an old education system. Academic people who spend the entire career in one place may not be able to see anything besides the four walls of their school, and most are afraid of any change that may impact their positions. Three years ago, I recommended to an Asian university to improve their software training with new courses, new methods, and willing to train some of their faculty. I spent the entire summer on training ten young professors and gave them materials from my courses that I taught at Carnegie Mellon so they can teach to their students. Last year when I came back to visit, I learned that all new training courses were rejected by other faculties. Out of ten professors that I trained, only two remains but eight have left. The chairman told me: “Our tradition is to train students to be intellectuals, not workers for the industry. They do not need new software courses as you suggested.” I felt sad as the world has changed, but this school was still clinging to the way.
I have many friends who taught Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) so I asked them: “How effective is your MOOC courses?” They all gave a similar answer: “If the students are serious about learning, attending all classes, do all homework and exams, they will learn a lot. It is possible to develop certain skill and be employable just by taking MOOC courses.” Jonathan N. a professor at Harvard who taught several MOOC courses told me: Today person who wants to work for Google or Facebook should review the job description for that position to identify the skills needed then enroll in MOOC. It is possible to develop all the needed skills within one to two years. Anyone can become a good software programmer in six months if they put in the efforts. But to be a software developer, they need more than just programming skills so it would take longer. Today if they take courses in Cloud computing, Big data analytics, Cybersecurity and Internet of Things, they can easily get a job at these software companies because they are desperate for software talents.”
As more companies are hiring people without a degree but with the latest knowledge and skills, the questions are: “Can university survive when the job market changes, the needs change, and the way company are hiring change? Can college degree still keep the same value that it had many years ago?
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
