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In their advertisements, Australian universities promise prospective students quite a lot.

You might wonder why they need to advertise at all — 36 per cent of the Australian population had gained tertiary qualifications in 2011, compared to two per cent in 1971.

Universities collected over $27 billion in revenue in 2014.

But with increasing graduate numbers, national lists of skills shortages, and stalled real wage growth, the question must be asked: is it really worth getting a degree?

More money, but at what cost?

For prospective students, a key argument for university study is its presumed positive effect on wages over a lifetime.

Andreas Schleicher, director for education and skills at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, says that figure is quite large in Australia.

“You get about $300,000 in earnings more than those who do not study,” he says.

There’s also a benefit for taxpayers.

“Better educated people pay more taxes, incur lower social costs — it’s a good investment,” Mr Schleicher says.

But that positive effect on lifetime wages isn’t uniform over all degrees, according to the Grattan Institute’s higher education program director, Andrew Norton.

PHOTO: University prestige only has a “moderate” effect on lifetime earnings, Andrew Norton says. (Unsplash: Aaron Cinard)

“Our research very consistently finds that if you do a degree such as medicine, dentistry, law, [or] engineering … that is really the key to good earnings,” he says.

“You’d be better off doing engineering at a low prestige university than arts at a high prestige university in Australia.”

But for Alison Wolf, an economist and professor of public sector management at Kings College, London, the perceived prestige of the awarding institution shouldn’t be dismissed.

For employers, a so-called “Sandstone University” degree can act as a sort of screening test.

“It signals to society that [students] are relatively intelligent, good future employees — the sort of people you won’t get sacked for hiring,” Professor Wolf says.

But Professor Wolf also believes students should have more options at the sub-degree and technical education level.

“If you’re 18 and you want get some form of tertiary qualification, you can have a full-time, three-year degree, and that’s basically it,” he says.

For students in the United Kingdom, Professor Wolf says, the lack of mid-level technical education is “desperately wrong” and “extremely unfair”.

“Essentially, you’re robbing these kids — they spend a long time in courses which they don’t particularly enjoy. You get high dropout rates and they pile up debts,” he says.

Universities no longer broaden minds

Historically, attending university had a broad social component: making new friends, sitting in a common room arguing about the world’s ills with strangers.

For Australian higher education students today, there simply isn’t time. Australia Bureau of Statistics data shows that, for many students, working while studying is essential.

In contrast to the American or British tertiary systems, a high percentage of Australian students do not relocate to study. Nearly 40 per cent of university students live with their parents.

PHOTO: It can be rare to find universities offering courses below the degree level. (Unsplash: Davide Cantelli)

Meanwhile, student activism — fertile ground for mind-broadening and friendship-fastening — has never been more atomised.

For Fairfax economics editor Ross Gittins, that socialising component is long gone.

“One of the things I’ve noticed is, you talk to young people and you say, ‘Well, who are your mates?’ and they’ll say, ‘The people I went to school with.’ In my generation, we’d say, ‘The people I went to uni with.'”

Could degrees themselves be the problem?

Mr Schleicher says universities — and the types of qualifications they offer — were designed for a very different time.

Our qualifications, he says, are “lumpy” — assuming a relatively static workforce, where graduands aren’t required to continuously adapt and engage with new environments.

The opportunity to continue learning throughout life, Mr Schleicher says, is “the big challenge” of modern university.

“If you continue learning at the workplace, or learning later in life in university, I think there is still a big gap between the needs of the modern society and the traditional universities as institutions.”

ABC NEWS

He is Always There to Meet Me!

Two friends met each other after a long interval of time. Both were salesmen, earnestly engaged in building up their careers.

One of them was downcast. “I’m doing very well,” he said ruefully. “Whenever I go to meet the top man in any office, he is sure to be out! How can I make my sales prosper? I know this is going to happen to me again and again. I make my appointment, I reach on time – but I am sure I will not meet the person concerned. Invariably, they tell me he has just left! It’s hopeless I tell you!”

His friend replied, “Whenever I go to meet someone important, I surely expect to find him there! I’m confident that I can convince him to do business with me, and I always come away with a successful sale!”

Thoughts have power. Thoughts constitute the ink in the pen of our life. We will do well to remember that we are writing our own destiny with our thoughts!

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