University???

When a young person asks me, should I go to university, I can't, these days, answer that question without first trying to find a good reason why anyone should go at all. In former days, university life was full of joy and expectation. Now it is often merely to fill in a blank on the resume for a job. One student said, if you don't have a university degree you won't be hired by a good company. When I asked what sort of company did he mean, the answer was, any company. Does this mean that if one wants a job at a rug, car or clothing sales business, an applicant should have a university education? Apparently, the answer is, yes because, I am told, it is a process of elimination and those with a degree are more likely to be hired. This whole picture is ridiculous. First of all our secondary education system stinks. It is so general that some kids find it a waste of their time. And don't tell me it is a socialization process. It was but it is not any more. You can have as much socialization in a fast food joint either in it as a customer or a worker. Senior high school students in their last couple of years, often have to take courses that have nothing whatever to do with anything but getting a piece of paper saying that they "graduated". I know students who had the number of courses correct but for some reason didn't have one particular course to get their certificate and had to do another whole year or take another course simply to fill out that particular bureaucratic need. How ridiculous is that and often it is a lack of close attention by the school to the individual's program in the first place. The system is antiquated and frankly, a mess.  First, we have to make high school education meet the true needs of students and not a bevy of requirements laid down by someone with his/her head in the clouds. Second, young people should get directly into their interest field even at high school and leave this "broaden your mind at the U" nonsense for those who are rich. The well-off might be able to afford the six figure numbers for that but most other people simply can't without going to loans and mortgages. And for what?  And using the pre-requisite ploy when the pre-requisites have nothing whatever to do with the professional goal of the student, is merely a way of sucking money out of the beginner  to pay for the expensive end courses of those about to leave the university. A pre-requisite should reflect directly on the end goal of the chosen course. That is the harsh truth of the matter. When I look at community colleges, I see some sense. Here people can live at home and get the basics before deciding on a career and whether it actually requires a formal academic education or a technical one that will take the student directly into the field he or she wishes to enter. Too often I hear students say, I'm going to university because I don't know what I want to do. That is an expensive way to do it. Nursing schools used to be largely in hospitals where nurses should train. Doctors do. Chefs, designers, mechanics and so on need true apprenticeship programs, not the ones that don't work now. Sitting in a classroom works for some careers but practical experience is where real learning takes place. We need more technical schools for students who can opt for that education at the Grade Eleven point. We would have more workers earning something quicker than having the student sit around in front of a  lecturer and wasting time on courses that they have no interest in anada that they could take on line.  If someone desires an academic education, all to the good, they can hie off to the university and do that. The others who need to make money as soon as possible and get to work as soon as possible can follow their choices. I'd like to see high school a shorter term with concentrated real learning taking place and that courses that have no true bearing on the lives of its students, be discarded. With computer knowledge much of the student's education can be achieved that way rather than sitting in a dusty classroom listening to someone droning on when what is being said, is easily accessible on a machine. Sorry, but it's a new day out here and it requires some new, perhaps uncomfortable, thought. University is just too expensive for the average person and scholarships are tokenism for all but the elite.