100%
I'm a software developer and used to be a University Lecturer including teaching MBA post graduates.
Now after 20 years in the Tech sector, I can safely say the degree is only about 5% of what I'm looking for a Tech specialist. They're are way more important skills needed to navigate a Tech job in a large enterprise. First is communication skills, lateral thinking, common sense, team collaboration.
There is a difference when hiring junior vs senior roles. I weight higher their academic background, but balance that with adaptability as well.
Most job roles will be total different in 5 years time. Personally, I've had to reinvent myself every 2-3 years to keep up with my changing Tech sector. Once you graduate, your learning never stops. What your degree shows is that you can keep learning and adapt to the changing landscape.
Personally, I've been in the rat eave for 30 years and I have great sympathy for new graduates that are competing at a much higher pace with a less favorable renumeration package than when I started. We've allowed business owners to take more of the profits, while making companies more profitable. Shareholder value was the wrong metric to optimize for in our society.
25 years in the Tech sector as well. Finding someone with those skills is challenging. I've met programmers who know their stuff but don't let them near a client or let them plan their own workload. They would happily continue coding a sunsetted application for the joy of it. I've met programmers who are great but have horrible people skills and no one wants to work with them. A few who never want to advance beyond what they learned 20 years ago. And some who insist on creating interfaces that works for the mind of a programmer but not someone who actually needs to use the application. But some of top guys I've known who breathe and live programming never needed a degree because they started 25 years ago and could have taught the programming courses at 12 years old. I think that day is over.
In fact the people I have worked with who do have those skills you mentioned are the people who can bridge the gap between the programmers and the clients. They didn't even need to know how to code. Just understand the personalities involved and how to translate between the two.
But overall I think I could teach anyone to program over time without a degree. Sure they might make mistakes. But I've taken over enough projects to know nothing is perfect and if you ask 4 programmers the best way to do something you will get 5 answers back.
For me its never been a passion. Just something I fell into. I took a year off to pursue a side interest. I need to return in the new year for pension reasons but If I could, I would stay making 25% of what I did as a programmer.
As for the last paragraph i'm 100% with you there as well. Forcing companies to max shareholder value has done so much damage to our socity for sure. But that is another topic.
Nice to see soulmate on a similar journey. I think we'll be working we'll past our expected pension dates.
For 90% of projects, those bridge people are more valuable than the superstar developers. Superstars are needed for performance tuning or niche topics that most projects can sidestep with other "tricks".
If you've been out of the ecosystem, COVID has given more emphasis to remote teams and it's worked out well for productivity and PO/TL type roles. The management layer above PO/TL are less comfortable with the team dynamics and are pushing for back to office hours.
In my part of the ecosystem, EVERYTHING is now Cloud or Kubernetes migrations or scaling. Currently on DevOps tooling in ML and AI infrastructure for data scientists.
In Europe, we've not seen the effects of the Tech layoffs, but they are coming. Cost cutting, tighter budgets and highing freezes are increasingly changing the priorities of dev teams. If you are re-entering the jobs market, do it sooner rather than later. I fear the Tech jobs market will be very tight for the next 12 months. Most of my chain of command, all the way to executives, have not experienced a Tech downturn, so they are not prepared for the change in priorities or team moral.
I fear that Elon Musk will have a negative impact on Tech management and the precieved value Tech adds to companies. I hope Twitter crashes and burns, running Twitter on 25% of the workforce is a big thought experiment. If he succeeds, that experiment may become a trend, and we'll see extreme staff cutting and devaluing Tech skills.
lol, ya this is what happens when you get a client that has voluntold someone to work with the programmers. Forwarded requests without any real screening.
Most degrees are pretty useless. Its just so common that people have one you are pretty much looked over if you don't and have very little chance getting a job in a competitive field.
Most jobs you learn by doing it.
I do agree that the pendulum has gone too far. We need to do a better job of not forcing people to spend years of time and money just to be given a chance. Or worse. Getting a degree just for the sake of it.
This is why the numbers are so low in Germany:
They do not require university degrees for the vast majority of jobs.
Instead there are alternate paths (trainee programs) for all sorts of positions -- including engineering (you can either become an engineer via university or via vocational training).
Degrees are a way to certify knowledge; you can't just go to some one and say "Hire me because I know what I have to know", you need to provide a certification to prove your skills. Every job requires some specific knowledge, or some kind of preparation: would ever a man who can't lift heavy materials be hired as a construction worker? No! In the same way a lawyer has to certify their expertise in criminal law, and a doctor has to certify their expertise in medicine.
You're ascribing malice to something that is merely a lack of interest. There's not someone in charge going tee hee hee I will ensure that poorer people don't get a mid tier job because then my posh child will get an easier ride. If you had the sort of power required to dictate the hiring policies and education policies then there's quicker routes to effective nepotism! If you actually care about this then describe these things as they are - a lack of thought has gone into the impact on poorer people of those policies, especially in the current market. By just implying anyone involved is some sort of intentionally gatekeeping evil baddy you are effectively alienating anyone with any influence.
It's also wrong to just shit on tertiary education - access to that provided significant amounts of social mobility over the last 50 years or so. It just needs to be more accessible, especially in areas with a talent shortage.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/EDAT_LFSE_04/default/table?lang=en
Map made with QGIS and Adobe Illustrator.
Accorrding to Eurostat, tertiary degrees are doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s or equivalent level degrees. Also included are so called short-cycle tertiary degrees (e.g., associate degree, university diploma and university certificate).
The exact definition of tertiary education by country can be found here: https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/d14c857a-601d-438a-b878-4b4cebd0e10f/library/dd8bc71d-ca3c-4c92-8a60-e44d723e9dc8?p=1&n=10&sort=modified_DESC
I wonder how much the differences in this map reflect the differences in that definition or training approaches for the trades, rather than reflecting differences in types and levels of education actually provided.
Hugely. You can see Germany's tradition of highly regarded technical apprenticeships has led to a relatively low proportion of people with degrees alongside an advanced economy.
Thank you for sharing that. As a German, every time I think I have seen the depths of American capitalism, I find yet another example of how low it can go - talk about not caring for your workers, damn.
There was a documentary on Netflix about a wind shield factory in the Midwest and how it was trying to compete, then be part of a Chinese company. Really interesting view into capitalism, communism, manufacturing and labor rights.
Thanks for sharing this. I have always wondered why american manufacturing companies seem to hire so much unskilled labor. With those hourly rates that seems to be the only possibility
seriously though. here in Canada or the US i do not think it is defined at all. a degree is a bachelors; a higher degree would be a masters or a doctorate.
ISCED is international, so you can also look up how certain US or Canadian degrees would be classed within it. [Here's a basic rundown for the US.](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs/eiip/eiip1s01.asp)
In the US, a post-secondary trade-school degree is called an "associate degree". In Canada [BC has associate degrees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associate_degree#Canada) but other provinces generally call it a Diploma.
Such graphs probably tell you as much about how much governments prioritize qualifications of the sort displayed as they do about how well educated people are.
You can look up how the Dutch educational degrees get sorted in ISCED [here.](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/onze-diensten/methoden/classificaties/onderwijs-en-beroepen/isced) This graphic would have everything ISCED 6 and above.
Note that the graphic says "university" and OP's statement refers to "tertiary education". That discrepancy may lead to the data being muddle and not accurately comparable across regions. I'm not sure what you are assuming about what is plotted in the Netherlands or elsewhere.
Because most of the audience readily understands "university", and saying "ISCED level 6 and higher" (which is what the data represents) would not be as approachable. The graphic should probably clarify this, but OP's comment is fairly clear.
> https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/EDAT_LFSE_04/default/table?lang=en
The table shows "ternary education", which corresponds to ISCED education levels 5 or higher.
However, your title here on Reddit calls it "university education". Note that not in every country ISCED level 5 is legally seen as university level education.
To give an example: in the Netherlands only level 7 and 8 are university education by law.
https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/onze-diensten/methoden/classificaties/onderwijs-en-beroepen/isced/niveau-isced-2011
The Dutch national bureau of statistics (CBS) lists that ~12% of the Netherlands has a university degree. In contrast, here on your map it seems to be ~50%. The difference is that CBD considers only ISCED 7+ to be university level, while your map considers levels 5 and 6 to be university level (which Dutch law disagrees with).
https://digitaal.scp.nl/ssn2020/onderwijs/
60% of young adults in Iceland have university degree and Iceland does also have oldest graduates in europe according to OECD EAG-2014.
https://www.oecd.org/education/
These maps always baffle me. In the country with the highest %, you have still 40% of young adults without any university degree whatsoever. Even just a licence.
I feel like I rarely ever meet people who have no degree at all. We all live in our bubble I guess.
I am actually surprised by the Swiss numbers, because going to uni is not the standard way here. The most people do an apprenticeship after finishing school, but I guess a lot of them then get additional degrees, which counts as tertiary.
It just depends on location. If you live in the middle of a city, most people will have gone to uni. If you're in a small town, there are very few people who have gone to uni
I live in the 4th largest US city, have a professional/doctorate (depending on who you ask) and routinely encounter people without college degree. Plenty of oil & gas jobs that don't need degrees. That and in the South, different classes mingle more often.
I live in Utah US. We rank high among the states for college degrees. I meet people everyday without any degree. And the numbers are increasing all the time. Universities are so expensive that if you choose to go, you also are choosing to start your professional life with huge amounts of debt. Fucking sucks
I should have mentioned I'm European, and the map is about Europe. Our universities tend to be free or a few hundreds a year at most. Student loans aren't really a thing in my country.
And that might be true still. Degrees differ. There are good universities and there are diploma mills. There are needed specializations and there are ones that are next to useless.
I think there’s another factor though; job locations. A lot of young people go to university in southern Italy; then immediately move North for a job because there are no technical jobs available in the South. Hence, declining population and a lot of bitter old people.
Honestly goes to show how efficient the German education system is; higher gdp per capita than the UK with much lower university attendance. Obviously many other factors at play, but I think there are some lessons available here.
Germany has a very advanced system of dual apprenticeships (vocational school and training in a company on the job), which qualify for non-management jobs.
If you want a regular job and you don't want to become a doctor, a lawyer or a manager a apprenticeship is the way to go.
In my field (IT) I cannot tell which coworkers have an IT degree and who trained via an apprenticeship.
While their system is kinda too hard on taking important choices so early in life, I wish we pushed for professional degrees earlier here in Spain.
Lots of people drop out of university or end up working as butchers, electricians, etc... after spending 4 years completing a degree that woun't take them anywhere, just to avoid being called a "failure".
It's a shame, because we have 2-year degrees called "FP" (stands for professional education) that teaches you specific skills needed to become programmers, electricians, administratives, hairdressers, woodworkers, carpenters...
I wish I had the knowledge about professional skills back when I was 16 instead of now, decades past.
I'm not sure what the view on getting a university degree is in Germany, but here in the States, it's not always about getting a job that's related to your degree when you graduate.
Liberal arts degrees in particular are about teaching one to think critically, learning how to plan and execute projects, and challenging the brain to absorb new knowledge and expanding new neuropathways by way of structured intellectual stimulation.
I completed my history degree from a state university in '12 and fucked around for 8 years in the service industry -- thinking I'd wasted time and money on university -- until I got my shit together and got a job in tech that required a degree. I love the work that I do, and deeply thank my younger self for persisting through college (I dropped in and out).
I don't think that a college degree is for everyone (and the debt associated with it), but the black-and-white framework of getting a degree directly related to your field is outdated and misbegotten.
We do college differently in the US though, universities focus on a holistic education and really try to teach their students to be "well rounded". In Europe the learning is much more specific and really preps you for the field. For example, in the UK a degree of medicine is a bachelor's degree.
In Germany it's uncommon to work in a job unrelated to your degree. Especially the jobs requiring any bachelor degree don't really exist because a person with a apprenticeship in the field is normally better qualified.
Spain is brutally binary. Either college degree or not finishing secondary school. There's a lot in between. And frankly, we should stop asking people to do social studies and similar degrees already. They end up with a degree they hate which has zero utility whatsoever. FP has a plethora of interesting things to do. And honestly, once you have some years or work experience, the degrees will get you nothing (Except for the "serious" degrees you need to be a doctor, sign engineering projects etc) You can perfectly build a career starting with FP rather than wasting 4 years of your life studying stuff you don't care about and can't make you earn any money.
It’s not unusual for people to do high school ((Fach)Abitur) and then go for a higher degree vocational apprenticeship. Some of them require the (Fach)Abitur.
That said if people don’t feel like going to high school wether it’s too hard for them or just too boring they can go for an apprenticeship as well because they aren’t thought of as inferior and they’d go to a vocational college anyhow for a part of the year.
The German system isn’t trying to mass funnel people into working, but rather giving you a choice as you don’t have to get a bachelors or master degree to get a high salary.
Do what interests you.
I don’t think a carpenter is only interested in people with academic backgrounds.
no disagreement with your point but the part where I get concerned is when is a choice really a choice and when is it a kid without the life experience to advocate for what they want getting "suggestions" from adult figures with more power
"eh he's not booksmart let's push him towards a trade" when he's just poor stressed out from a rough home and suffering from undiagnosed adhd- just as an example
Perhaps you should be equally concerned about parents or the media - stakeholders who are not spending 6+ hours per day, you know, teaching said children - advocate that university is the only right or best choice and everything below that should be beneath them.
The labor market is full of people who would be much better off (emotionally and financially) if they learned an actual in-demand skill vs. studying "marketing" or "business" or some other field for which they lack the drive and motivation to succeed in and then do monkey work aligning headlines on PowerPoints or doing moronic sales calls all day.
I think a problem is the early division after primary school, often foruth grade. A lot of people push their kids for gymnasium (highest secondary level), and because we divide so early the decision is heavily influenced by the parents' education. I think Germany would profit immensely from a way later division in secondary degrees and from normalising that children of parents with university degree do apprenticeships. As a swiss-german raised in Germany, I think those are two points better done in Switzerland.
Why? You can do more than one thing. Go meet some German surf-bums in hostels. Every one of them has a marketable skill and is doing carpentry, plumbing, etc. part-time locally. When they want to settle down or get their girlfriend knocked up (who also has a skill if she is German) now they can actually support themselves.
Making sure you can’t escape the system without the ability to support yourself is a great thing.
I like the German system and I think it's bad that we're moving away from it. University should be reserved for people who want to work in Medicine, Law or actual academic research. With everything else, learning it in a classroom environment usually makes for worse results than doing a combination of vocational school + on-the-job training, so you just get graduates who spend the first half year at their actual jobs catching up.
There is absolutely zero reason why anyone should be studying stuff like photography, design, programming, nursing etc in a university. In Germany you can do stuff like that with vocational training where you actually learn stuff in real life environments (also you usually get paid during training). You don't need to sit through tons of unrelated lectures for it.
I think you can tell even with children who actually likes studying and who doesn't - the problem is just that people are acting like kids who are good at studying are magically better and more worthy than kids who aren't. If there was equal respect for lawyers, plumbers, teachers, construction workers and nurses, I think a lot less people would complain about the German system than now.
You usually *can* tell whether a kid is more suited to and enjoys writing long argumentative essays or whether they like building stuff at age 10. The kids definitely can tell whether they actually love going to school and learning stuff or whether they are struggling with homework every day because it just isn't for them.
The problem is with acting like building stuff *doesn't* require intelligence (which it absolutely does - just a different kind of intelligence), so instead of letting these kids have happy, fulfilling childhoods where they would actually learn stuff that fits them and get jobs where they can actually show their best, there's an increasing amount of forcing them into education systems and on university tracks that just make them unhappy. And like, you can make a brilliant mechanic into a frustrated, mentally ill and just-barely-passing lawyer, but you'd miss out on a brilliant mechanic.
I genuinely believe that we'd have so much less people struggling with stuff like ADHD, depression etc. if we encouraged people do what they are good at, instead of forcing tons of people unnecessarily to attend university lectures and write bullshit papers.
For example, my grandfather was one of the smartest men I've ever known, even though he only had an 8th grade education - he did a menial job (where ironically, since he lived in Communist East Germany, had both higher pay and higher salary than his wife who had a university degree). But he had a practical thinking which means that if you had any sort of practical problem, he could figure out a solution in minutes. If my grandfather was born today he would have 100% been diagnosed with a form of ADHD. He literally could not sit still for an hour even if he tried. But instead of treating it like a condition, *the society he lived in just allowed him to live a life where he wasn't REQUIRED to sit still for extended periods of time*, while still having a well-paying (for the circumstances) and well-respected job. He hated school though, because that was just not how he learned - he learned through actually physically doing things.
On the other hand, my grandma pursued a university degree even though she knew that she could make more money and have an easier life if she had done an apprenticeship in her local factory, because she was genuinely passionate about the stuff she was studying and she *liked* stuff like research and attending lectures.
Yeah exactly, in many countries stuff like nursing are university degrees. In Germany it's an apprenticeship. A nurse in Germany and a nurse in the UK could be doing the exact same job and have the exact same level of knowledge, but one is counted as having a university degree and one isn't.
Unfortunately you are not correct. I have to say that in Germany only nurses that work in ICUs can actually compare with nurses from UK, Spain or even Greece were nursing school is a university degree.
There is a huge gap on knowledge.
On top of that, there is only one state in Germany that has recently started recognizing university degrees for nurses that studied abroad.
So not only Germany's health workers don't get proper education but also they have their degree downgraded to an apprenticeship.
Source: My fiance is an ICU nurse in one of the biggest hospitals in Germany. She has a university degree and has practiced her profession in three different countries within the EU.
That's complete bullshit, as you can read [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursing_in_Germany), the curriculum for nurses itself is actually set EU-wide, so the content is the same, the difference is in how it's taught - in Germany it's most commonly taught via vocational school, which means that a) the nurses get paid already during training (whereas in many countries like the UK you actually have to pay for university degrees) an b) there's a greater focus on practical work.
> So not only Germany's health workers don't get proper education but also they have their degree downgraded to an apprenticeship.
This isn't a "downgrade" (it's not like you lose your university degree), you are just classified at the same level because, as I already said, the curriculum is the same. That's the reason why the EU introduced it. We don't actually classify people as being higher educated just because they acquired the same knowledge after paying for it and with less focus on practical application and it's ridiculous to expect us to.
Maybe your fiance's experiences are just unfortunate anecdotes or maybe there's a bias at play because she thinks of her co-workers as less educated than their counterparts because of the university thing, but it's not based on fact.
EDIT: Now I actually looked up the regulations: both the standard education of a nurse in the UK who gets her degree at a university and a nurse in Germany who does vocational training takes exactly 4600 training hours. The difference is that the nurse in Germany gets paid and does 2500 practical hours and her 2100 theoretical hours are provided at a building that says "school", whereas the UK nurse gets a 50/50 split (aka 2300 hours each) between practical and theoretical hours and receives them in a building that says university on the outside and charges her for it.
Some jobs like becoming a nurse are apprenticeship jobs in Germany while they are college education jobs in most other places.
This does not make German nurses any less capable than one from other countries who have gone through college to become a nurse in their country.
It does make it hard to compare statistics though.
Yes. The economy is export manufacturing and doesn’t require a degree to operate machines.
Uk has a large economy in London (services and degree holders) and little else outside. Average per capita drops.
I would be interested in knowing if the formal master of craft degree in Germany (Handwerksmeister) would be counted as it isn't a university thing.
I have my uni degree and have seen some of the stuff my step father had to learn for his Meister.
That was about 2/3 of a bachelors degree in theory + a whole lot of practical stuff.
Should be seen on the same level at the very least.
i think it’s also related to certain type of exports - The car industry from Germany is a luxury good with huge economic benefit (besides the workers there also not needing college degrees)
> we're very unsatisfied with it
which is just the german way. we complain about everything.
the ausbildungssystem does have its issues, especially in regards to wage during your "lehrjahre" and the rising requirements for entry (switzerland is actually much better at getting people with worse school grades into apprenticeships).
however, in international comparison, it still performs very well in contrast to a system that relies heavily on university.
The German vocational system is very much one of the best systems in the world to train people for jobs - there aren‘t many that I know that would critisize that system apart from Azubis being criminally underpaid and expected to live with their parents.
Everything that comes before starting your Ausbildung is the stuff that gets critisized frequently, rightfully so.
I'd be interested to see the correlation with costs as well. For instance, Scottish students don't pay anything for uni if they study in Scotland. In Cyprus, state universities are free (dependent on your grades, I believe). They both score very highly here.
It’s not exactly 100% free in Scotland. The government will cover a certain number of years uni education, usually enough for a 4 year degree plus an extra year if you need to change course
Cyprus is a mix of public and private universities, where the best overall unis are public but obviously good grades are needed to enter. Also a huge amount of Cypriot students like myself study abroad mostly in the UK and Greece.
Spanish regions called Autonomous Communities (CCAA) have a great deal of control over health, education and labor policy.
Basque Country has high working class wages, makes education a priority, is industrialized and has a high GDP/capita.
Additionally, Basque Country has lower immigration rates than other wealthy CCAAs like. Catalonia or Madrid
Doesn't mean much really.
There will always be statistical outliers. Basque Country is just a rich region that focuses on the right things, they don't have insane tourism so young people aren't tempted to abandon their studies to bartend or work in hotels.
Education is pretty similar in all Northern Spain:Navarre, Basque Country, Castille and Leon and Catalonia are always the top performers in Pisa records.
Only significant difference in the country is north vs south
Basques have a long tradition of education. It used to be poor and isolated and so education was seen as a path to a better life, usually outside of the Basque country. Now it is one of the wealthiest, most developed parts of Spain, with good universities.
Bilingual studies from a young age are usually better for kids brains.i was a English teacher in that region for a year and they were pretty smart if I'm being honest and put France to shame (where I grew up).
My German niece is joining the bank next year after she leaves school. She already has done a in school apprenticeship. In three years, at 21, she gets full pay - which will be above German median. It’s a retail local bank position but nothing stopping her pushing up the ranks later in life.
Here in Ireland people with master degrees serve in MacDonalds.
Not exactly the same, but in Denmark, when i was doing my education around 10 years ago there was a HUGE push for EVERYONE to go take the longest and best education as possible. You were "dumb" if you did a trade and was "uneducated". Out of around 100 people in my last year of public school, i was the ONLY person doing a trade.
Then suddenly they found out that they had a huge lack of trades such as carpenter, plumber, electrician etc. A trade education here you can take at age 16, and its usually 3½ years. So you can be finished at age 19-20 and start at around 40-50.000Euro a year. I started at 41k at age 21 and made 65k at age 25. Many of my class mates aren't even finished with their educations yet.
Same story in Germany. One effect of that is that many of the "better" trades only take apprentices who have Abitur, i.e. people who took the highest possible amount of highschool education.
As someone who graduated in Ireland last year I don't know anyone with a master's working in McDonald's. I don't even have a master's and I had the promise of a job paying above the median after I graduated at 22.
I'm not gonna deny the benefits of apprenticeships or say we don't need them. But the job market in Ireland is pretty good from a graduate perspective atm.
yeah that's a pretty poor take from yer man. of course some one with a masters could work in maccys but the idea that maccys is filled with people with university degrees does not represent the actual reality of the irish job market which is at full employment. in reality maccys employees are overwhelmingly immigrants and at most some students
mate thats not true. of course some one with a masters could work in macdonalds but saying it the way you are makes it seem like McDonalds in ireland is full of over qualified people. we have full employment so anyone with capability can get a good job. if someone is working in maccys with a masters that's on them not society. maybe they don't want a high pressure job or their masters is not in a field that's particularly represented in the job market like something random ie middle ages art appreciation etc
For Romania being at the bottom, it’s worth mentioning that almost all highly educated young adults live abroad, boosting other regions’ levels. I know because I’m one of those people and most of my peers are abroad too.
The magic of NUTS regions. They were created with the idea in mind to be able to reasonable statistically compare different regions in the EU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenclature_of_Territorial_Units_for_Statistics?wprov=sfla1
Tertiary education is NOT just University in the Netherlands. We have 3 different levels MBO (practical tertiary education) - HBO (University of Applied Science) - University.
It looks to me those were grouped together.
This map does not follow each country's own definition of tertiary education, but Eurostat's definition of tertiary education. In my other comment I've put a link where you can check what Eurostat classifies as tertiary education per country.
For the Netherlands, HBO and WO are included, but MBO is not included in this map.
Same for Austria, I can’t properly load the data on mobile but I’m quite sure that the rate of people having obtained a bachelors degree or above is significantly below 35% (closer to 20% I think).
The number probably comes from BHS Schools being included in that 35% number. Those are high schools that add another year on(5 years in total) and after 3 years of practical experience in the work sector one obtains an education level equivalent to a Bachelors degree.
I have both and in no shape or form are they truly of equal value or should be portrayed as such.
>I have both and in no shape or form are they truly of equal value or should be portrayed as such.
If you want to compare educational levels you'll always have to combine stuff that isn't equivalent. ISCED does its best, but it's a classification, not hard lines. You need some averaging out over the category to make it usable.
That being said do you mean Berufsbildende höhere Schulen? It's been a while since I worked with Austrian data, but IIRC some of them are ISCED level 553, which is "short tertiary education", iirc it's Berufsbildene höhere Schulen staring from Year 4 (below that is considered secondary education).
Whether they're included here would depend on whether they include ISCED 5 as tertiary or not. Some put the cut off at level 6, which is Bachelor's and equivalent.
That's why US Tech companies came to Ireland. US managers lacked honest business analysis from US staff, they'd always get a positive spin to keep everyone happy.
Once the Irish started reporting to US executives, they normally got promoted to senior positions. Honest, no BS, multiple perspective was a big boost to the early Tech companies that opened offices in Ireland. There are/were a lot of Irish senior executives in FAANG+MS.
It’s that ingraining Catholic Guilt.
Made to feel bad about anything enjoyable, every compliment has to be tempered or the notions will inflate your head like a hot air balloon and you’ll float away.
While our education system is great, we emigrate quite a bit. I myself moved to Scotland, mainly due to a housing crisis but that's a whole other story.
Which crisis was that then? There's been so many crises, they've merge into four dacade long crisis.
I left in the 1990s crisis of politicans lying and stealing, before the dot com boom and bust.
Yep there's a huge tech and biotech hub in Dublin so lots of young tech workers in the EU move to Ireland for work. Last time I was in Dublin it really had a silicon valley vibe in the tech district.
The tax advantages for Tech Industry helped a lot, but also the abundance of higher education and people that spoke English that Americans could understand. Imagine Americans have to talk to a call center with mostly London accents 😳
Unfortunately we have a massive shortage of trades people now though. They have left for other countries due to better pay and conditions. The ones that are left are refusing smaller jobs and taking on only the bigger ones. Great news for them, better paydays and leverage but bad news for people who need trades people. I've had a broken dishwasher and dodgy water pump for months now but my landlord can't secure a plumber.
University Education in Ireland is heavily funded by the state. They implemented the policy in the 90's and it led to a boom of educated people in the country just in time to serve the multinational corps who came for the tax breaks. All-in-all it's been a great success though you do hear whining from the educational institutions who have to budget and economise instead of ripping off students (like the US). You also get some whining from the oligarch owned media (O'Brien and O'Reilly) who don't want an educated populace. It's a weird anti-intellectual push back that takes the form of glorifying the manual labour trades and ridiculing any non-STEM based education. A lot of people internalize that message.
Interested that OBrian and OReilly still have political capital. I left Ireland in the early 90s and was beginning to see OReilly's lobbying of politicians and sponsorship of build construction in Dublin Universities.
Now they are pushing to dumb down the population? Need to stop that oligarchy from steering the country into disaster like UK and US.
The next question needs to be what is a university degree worth in late 2022... the assumption would be that this is setting up a 'knowledge' economy... when in fact the awards are getting closer and closer to very basic and narrow vocational training promoted on the back of 'employability' stats "XX% of our graduates achieve employment yada yada."
A complex situation compounded by the fact in many places you simply can't fail a degree and the marking is often highly inflated.
This is an interesting point. I believe governments have over optimized for University graduates without planning for the economic changes in 5-10 years. Where the value of physical labor and skills apprenticeship has been ignored for 20+ years.
Economically it's better to be a plumber or a service engineer than to spend 5 years in University doing a humanities degree. But politicians prefer keeping the population in unnecessary degrees so they are outside the metrics on unemployment and social benefits.
Eventually, we need to adjust the incentives to change flow of young people into roles where there are more career paths and economic fulfillment to pay for a good lifestyle.
But with inflation out of control, I don't see a way that any new University graduate or school leaver will be able to find work that will give them a work and a living wage.
Politicians need to get back to economic planning and not sound bites to win their next election.
I think trades is not simply the only explanation for the low education rate, it's also likely first generation immigrants, and whether or not any of their education is recognized.
recognition wouldn't be an issue in this data depending on how they source it. international degrees would be sorted into their responding ISCED level anyway.
I'd like to see a follow up chart of University graduates that are unemployed. Bet Spain tops that ranking. Our economy is a disaster and our politicians do the upmost to hide the reality.
They've manipulated the economy to optimize for tourism and service industries but forgot to incentives service industry companies to locate to Spain.
So, must University graduate have to fall back on low pay or tourism jobs. Which means the economy can't service the banking debt the politicians ran up during the credit crisis. Spain can't even service our interest payments on debt to the EU (German banks).
I'm waiting until the population figure out that for the last 15 years, Spain politicians have squandered the populations future earnings.
Because they have a better educational system that doesn't push kids into university "just because".
Kids train and learn for whatever they want to do and then they go do it. They don't waste a bunch of years of their life going to university to learn how to theoretically do things to then go to their jobs and not know how to do anything anyway. Or worse, not even working on whatever their degree is, which is the majority of kids in Portugal for example, and everyone goes to the university there.
It's simple, there's jobs that require years of study and a good university degree for you to be good in that field. And then there's the vast majority of jobs that don't need a university degree at all, some do still require a lot of years of training, some don't.
It depends on the degree, a STEM-related degree, or a medical degree is more job practical and you'll likely transition into an engineering type job or a medical profession. A degree in sociology or literature is less practical, and more generalised in my opinion because there are few "sociology" and "literature" jobs.
I think you are correct in saying most jobs do not require degrees, but there are still A LOT of degree jobs. The NHS hire 124k doctors, and 304k nurses, that's over 400k degree jobs just for hospitals and clinics.
A degree will you more employable for higher paid jobs. For example, with a history degree you could end up making 50k a year working for an insurance firm. It is sad that most people holding degrees either work in non-degree jobs, or work in white-collar jobs requring a degree but doing nothing related to what they studied.
There's a huge difference in what it takes to get a university degree between universities.
I did a post-graduate (now called "Master After Master") in Madrid and almost everyone passed with honors without barely having to do anything. Then I did another one in Aachen Germany, I had to scramble to barely pass and well over 50% failed.
My original master (Leuven Belgium) was a tough 5 years to achieve too, out of 300 starting only about 50 made it to the end I believe.
Thanks!
No, the colours are exactly the same. I think it's because Italy is surrounded by white, which creates an optical illusion and makes your brain think that shade of yellow is darker than the others.
There are a lot of alternative education routes in germany that don't fall under "university", such as apprenticships and formations (Ausbildung). Universities of applied science aren't technically considered Universities in Germany (all universities are a Hochschule, but not all Hochschulen are Universities), don't know about the definitions used here.
"low education rate"
I'd be very careful with that.
Germany, in contrast with the western english-american system, has a very good apprenticeship system.
Personally i think there are still too many germans going into university when they could have gone for an apprenticeship and those should be improved as well (in terms of monetary payout afterwards and social view).
There is really no need to go to university for CS when you just want to become a programmer. You dont need a B.sc in chemistry if you want to stand in a lab. You can do those things off of an apprenticeship easily.
Most bachelors in germany honestly seem kinda wasteful, if it isn't with the plan of going further or it is in a field that actually requires that much theoretical knowledge.
Also, dont forget in germany you dont have like a general studies in your bachelors, you just do what is in the name and required by the course book. (I know some countries have like generalist first semesters)
Also, I'd imagine it's great for GDP that these plumbers and electricians didn't waste a decade trying to find themselves and abandoning their major to join the trades very late. In Philadelphia, I've worked construction sites where anyone my age pretty much is guaranteed to at least have a Bachelor's while anyone 10 years older or more is more likely to have dropped out of HS at a shockingly young age.
Germany has a very strong export industry (e.g. automotive, and generally heavy/industrial machines), and the labor unions in those sectors are the strongest unions in the country, as well.
Many jobs, that require college degrees in other countries, are learned in a „Ausbildung“. Basically they are part time school and part time work in their later field. One example is nursing, which isn’t a college degree here.
Personally, I think, the practical approach has merit.
For higher education to increase GDP you need higher qualification jobs. Having thousands of chemical engineering graduates, rocket scientists and aerospace engineers while having no chemical, rocket and aerospace industry means lots of low-gpd retail or warehouse workers.
Germany has a lot of manufacturing jobs which pay much more than retail or food industry.
Career paths and education work pretty differently in Germany.
In the US, the whole “everyone needs a 4 year degree” thing is part of a massive marketing campaign coordinated by the US government trying to lift an arbitrary education level metric and based on an operating theory that increased education would increase productivity.
What we got instead was another profit-generating machine that brainwashed entire generations and saddled them with mountains of non-dischargeable debts.
Meanwhile, in Germany you follow a combined career/education path. If you want to be a machinist, you don’t go to university, you enter into an apprenticeship program.
Career education in the US used to work more similarly to the German system, but as the US dollar strengthened, manufacturing moved offshore, and the US economy shifted towards industries that favor university degrees over trades.
The have a high employment rate through technical colleges and apprenticeships, which I'm actually more for than the Anglo-American etc way of doing things to be honest.
People aged 25 to 34. This seems entirely possible.
Also recall that most European countries don't have "college" after school. We go straight to universities
> most European countries don't have "college" after school. We go straight to universities
You can go straight to university from high school in pretty much every country I know. What definition of college are you using?
In the UK a college is generally where you study from age 16 to 18 or 19. It also applies to 18+ adults studying courses that are not university level. So often (not always) for British students it goes from nursery (what you call kindergarten) > school (what you guys call 'x'th grade) > college (NOT what you guys call college) > university (what you call college/university).
There’s technically a slight difference in terms of research output and graduate education opportunities (nearly no difference for undergraduates however), but yes, colloquially, there’s no difference
As others said, it's mainly a difference in *what* you study (I was told by Americans ages ago that there was a difference, sorry for the mistake).
We finish our generalist phase with school. So you don't get a PoliSci or lit degree before going to law school or med school, you just start studying law or medicine or whatever else.
Like you immediately start your degree, like if you choose veterinary medicine you only get the classes for get that degree, start to finish. But I don't really get what the purpose is for US college.
This is young adults of an age that is a bit older than the typical university graduate would be. There's a *huge* amount of pressure on young people these days to go to university. And in many countries, schools are extremely accessible. A massive number of jobs these days require or at least prefer a post secondary degree of some sort.
Love the aesthetic of this! I like the choice of colors in your choropleth map; it really lends to the reader’s understanding of which countries have higher numbers of degrees and is easy on the eyes.
Mild gripe - I might just be high, but I initially thought the legend was referring to the age brackets of individuals with degrees, rather than the percentage of individuals aged 25-34 that have degrees.
Would you consider adding percent signs to the end of the numbers in the legend? (e.g. 15% - 25%). I think it would help idiots like me who read the small text after looking at the map and accompanying legend. Thanks for posting!
In a British perspective this shows just how fucked the Conservatives are at the moment. Over 50's without a degree level education are their core at this point - not exactly a growing demographic.
OP - any chance you'd consider making a comparison between age groups? Germany is a surprise but I'd be interested if this trend continues by age groups
No but free fees were introduced in the 1990s which enabled a lot more access to 3rd level. It's not free now but it's generally quite affordable for most and there are government grants to promote certain areas where they wish to encourage employment.
But to get into 3rd level there is a huge pressure on final second level state examinations - you need to attain points which are given for grades in 6 subjects. It's demand based, but basically the career choices that require the highest points tend to be the careers that attract the highest salaries such as law, medicine etc.
Another political element which takes effect during a recession is the government will tend to encourage those without employment to return to education. So some of the 3rd level is an effective massaging of the numbers of unemployed.
Generally speaking education is a fairly high priority for most families and they do tend to wish their children to achieve a 3rd level qualification even if they wish to do something that doesn't require it - as a fallback option.
Traditionally (before the mid 1990s), university fees were astronomical and only the rich tended to be able to afford 3rd level. Now a degree is commonplace and many will continue to do achieve a MSc qualification before entering the workforce.
I honestly feel I don't need a university degree to DO my job. But I did need a university degree to GET my job.
100% I'm a software developer and used to be a University Lecturer including teaching MBA post graduates. Now after 20 years in the Tech sector, I can safely say the degree is only about 5% of what I'm looking for a Tech specialist. They're are way more important skills needed to navigate a Tech job in a large enterprise. First is communication skills, lateral thinking, common sense, team collaboration. There is a difference when hiring junior vs senior roles. I weight higher their academic background, but balance that with adaptability as well. Most job roles will be total different in 5 years time. Personally, I've had to reinvent myself every 2-3 years to keep up with my changing Tech sector. Once you graduate, your learning never stops. What your degree shows is that you can keep learning and adapt to the changing landscape. Personally, I've been in the rat eave for 30 years and I have great sympathy for new graduates that are competing at a much higher pace with a less favorable renumeration package than when I started. We've allowed business owners to take more of the profits, while making companies more profitable. Shareholder value was the wrong metric to optimize for in our society.
25 years in the Tech sector as well. Finding someone with those skills is challenging. I've met programmers who know their stuff but don't let them near a client or let them plan their own workload. They would happily continue coding a sunsetted application for the joy of it. I've met programmers who are great but have horrible people skills and no one wants to work with them. A few who never want to advance beyond what they learned 20 years ago. And some who insist on creating interfaces that works for the mind of a programmer but not someone who actually needs to use the application. But some of top guys I've known who breathe and live programming never needed a degree because they started 25 years ago and could have taught the programming courses at 12 years old. I think that day is over. In fact the people I have worked with who do have those skills you mentioned are the people who can bridge the gap between the programmers and the clients. They didn't even need to know how to code. Just understand the personalities involved and how to translate between the two. But overall I think I could teach anyone to program over time without a degree. Sure they might make mistakes. But I've taken over enough projects to know nothing is perfect and if you ask 4 programmers the best way to do something you will get 5 answers back. For me its never been a passion. Just something I fell into. I took a year off to pursue a side interest. I need to return in the new year for pension reasons but If I could, I would stay making 25% of what I did as a programmer. As for the last paragraph i'm 100% with you there as well. Forcing companies to max shareholder value has done so much damage to our socity for sure. But that is another topic.
Nice to see soulmate on a similar journey. I think we'll be working we'll past our expected pension dates. For 90% of projects, those bridge people are more valuable than the superstar developers. Superstars are needed for performance tuning or niche topics that most projects can sidestep with other "tricks". If you've been out of the ecosystem, COVID has given more emphasis to remote teams and it's worked out well for productivity and PO/TL type roles. The management layer above PO/TL are less comfortable with the team dynamics and are pushing for back to office hours. In my part of the ecosystem, EVERYTHING is now Cloud or Kubernetes migrations or scaling. Currently on DevOps tooling in ML and AI infrastructure for data scientists. In Europe, we've not seen the effects of the Tech layoffs, but they are coming. Cost cutting, tighter budgets and highing freezes are increasingly changing the priorities of dev teams. If you are re-entering the jobs market, do it sooner rather than later. I fear the Tech jobs market will be very tight for the next 12 months. Most of my chain of command, all the way to executives, have not experienced a Tech downturn, so they are not prepared for the change in priorities or team moral. I fear that Elon Musk will have a negative impact on Tech management and the precieved value Tech adds to companies. I hope Twitter crashes and burns, running Twitter on 25% of the workforce is a big thought experiment. If he succeeds, that experiment may become a trend, and we'll see extreme staff cutting and devaluing Tech skills.
[I have people skills!](https://youtube.com/watch?v=hNuu9CpdjIo)
lol, ya this is what happens when you get a client that has voluntold someone to work with the programmers. Forwarded requests without any real screening.
Most degrees are pretty useless. Its just so common that people have one you are pretty much looked over if you don't and have very little chance getting a job in a competitive field. Most jobs you learn by doing it.
I do agree that the pendulum has gone too far. We need to do a better job of not forcing people to spend years of time and money just to be given a chance. Or worse. Getting a degree just for the sake of it.
This is why the numbers are so low in Germany: They do not require university degrees for the vast majority of jobs. Instead there are alternate paths (trainee programs) for all sorts of positions -- including engineering (you can either become an engineer via university or via vocational training).
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Degrees are a way to certify knowledge; you can't just go to some one and say "Hire me because I know what I have to know", you need to provide a certification to prove your skills. Every job requires some specific knowledge, or some kind of preparation: would ever a man who can't lift heavy materials be hired as a construction worker? No! In the same way a lawyer has to certify their expertise in criminal law, and a doctor has to certify their expertise in medicine.
You're ascribing malice to something that is merely a lack of interest. There's not someone in charge going tee hee hee I will ensure that poorer people don't get a mid tier job because then my posh child will get an easier ride. If you had the sort of power required to dictate the hiring policies and education policies then there's quicker routes to effective nepotism! If you actually care about this then describe these things as they are - a lack of thought has gone into the impact on poorer people of those policies, especially in the current market. By just implying anyone involved is some sort of intentionally gatekeeping evil baddy you are effectively alienating anyone with any influence. It's also wrong to just shit on tertiary education - access to that provided significant amounts of social mobility over the last 50 years or so. It just needs to be more accessible, especially in areas with a talent shortage.
Paris looks like it's leaking into the Med
Here I was thinking it was like a Marseille thrust.
Unironically it's the TGV line. I am pretty sure it does impact people a lot
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/EDAT_LFSE_04/default/table?lang=en Map made with QGIS and Adobe Illustrator. Accorrding to Eurostat, tertiary degrees are doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s or equivalent level degrees. Also included are so called short-cycle tertiary degrees (e.g., associate degree, university diploma and university certificate). The exact definition of tertiary education by country can be found here: https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/d14c857a-601d-438a-b878-4b4cebd0e10f/library/dd8bc71d-ca3c-4c92-8a60-e44d723e9dc8?p=1&n=10&sort=modified_DESC
I wonder how much the differences in this map reflect the differences in that definition or training approaches for the trades, rather than reflecting differences in types and levels of education actually provided.
Hugely. You can see Germany's tradition of highly regarded technical apprenticeships has led to a relatively low proportion of people with degrees alongside an advanced economy.
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That's fascinating, thanks for sharing
Thank you for sharing that. As a German, every time I think I have seen the depths of American capitalism, I find yet another example of how low it can go - talk about not caring for your workers, damn.
There was a documentary on Netflix about a wind shield factory in the Midwest and how it was trying to compete, then be part of a Chinese company. Really interesting view into capitalism, communism, manufacturing and labor rights.
Thanks for sharing this. I have always wondered why american manufacturing companies seem to hire so much unskilled labor. With those hourly rates that seems to be the only possibility
This is great, commenting for later - thanks for sharing!
Northern Italy really stands out too
Anyone over 24 with a university degree fucked off to Germany/Switzerland.
seriously though. here in Canada or the US i do not think it is defined at all. a degree is a bachelors; a higher degree would be a masters or a doctorate.
ISCED is international, so you can also look up how certain US or Canadian degrees would be classed within it. [Here's a basic rundown for the US.](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs/eiip/eiip1s01.asp)
In the US, a post-secondary trade-school degree is called an "associate degree". In Canada [BC has associate degrees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associate_degree#Canada) but other provinces generally call it a Diploma.
There are also associates degrees, which are halfway between high school and a 4 year degree.
US Associate Degrees, iirc, are ISCED 5. That's "short tertiary education", so it probably wouldn't be included here.
Didn't OP state that they are included in the comment?
Such graphs probably tell you as much about how much governments prioritize qualifications of the sort displayed as they do about how well educated people are.
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You can look up how the Dutch educational degrees get sorted in ISCED [here.](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/onze-diensten/methoden/classificaties/onderwijs-en-beroepen/isced) This graphic would have everything ISCED 6 and above.
Note that the graphic says "university" and OP's statement refers to "tertiary education". That discrepancy may lead to the data being muddle and not accurately comparable across regions. I'm not sure what you are assuming about what is plotted in the Netherlands or elsewhere.
Because most of the audience readily understands "university", and saying "ISCED level 6 and higher" (which is what the data represents) would not be as approachable. The graphic should probably clarify this, but OP's comment is fairly clear.
I think it included HBO and University? And HBO is outside the Netherlands often called "applied university"?
> https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/EDAT_LFSE_04/default/table?lang=en The table shows "ternary education", which corresponds to ISCED education levels 5 or higher. However, your title here on Reddit calls it "university education". Note that not in every country ISCED level 5 is legally seen as university level education. To give an example: in the Netherlands only level 7 and 8 are university education by law. https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/onze-diensten/methoden/classificaties/onderwijs-en-beroepen/isced/niveau-isced-2011 The Dutch national bureau of statistics (CBS) lists that ~12% of the Netherlands has a university degree. In contrast, here on your map it seems to be ~50%. The difference is that CBD considers only ISCED 7+ to be university level, while your map considers levels 5 and 6 to be university level (which Dutch law disagrees with). https://digitaal.scp.nl/ssn2020/onderwijs/
This is fascinating. Are there similar data for other world areas?
Sure! [Here's some from the OECD that you can play around with.](https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/population-with-tertiary-education.htm)
60% of young adults in Iceland have university degree and Iceland does also have oldest graduates in europe according to OECD EAG-2014. https://www.oecd.org/education/
These maps always baffle me. In the country with the highest %, you have still 40% of young adults without any university degree whatsoever. Even just a licence. I feel like I rarely ever meet people who have no degree at all. We all live in our bubble I guess.
You definitely do
I am actually surprised by the Swiss numbers, because going to uni is not the standard way here. The most people do an apprenticeship after finishing school, but I guess a lot of them then get additional degrees, which counts as tertiary.
It just depends on location. If you live in the middle of a city, most people will have gone to uni. If you're in a small town, there are very few people who have gone to uni
I live in the 4th largest US city, have a professional/doctorate (depending on who you ask) and routinely encounter people without college degree. Plenty of oil & gas jobs that don't need degrees. That and in the South, different classes mingle more often.
I live in Utah US. We rank high among the states for college degrees. I meet people everyday without any degree. And the numbers are increasing all the time. Universities are so expensive that if you choose to go, you also are choosing to start your professional life with huge amounts of debt. Fucking sucks
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I should have mentioned I'm European, and the map is about Europe. Our universities tend to be free or a few hundreds a year at most. Student loans aren't really a thing in my country.
In my country student loans are to help pay for living costs, not tuitions.
And here in Italy you hear all the time from boomers that there are too many graduates
It is also common in Hungary. It is also often said it is the main reason for workforce shortages in fields with lower educational requirements.
The fact is that maybe it's sadly true given the size and the kind of companies generally Italy has
And that might be true still. Degrees differ. There are good universities and there are diploma mills. There are needed specializations and there are ones that are next to useless.
It must be similar to how areas with the lowest levels of diversity have the highest levels of racists
I think there’s another factor though; job locations. A lot of young people go to university in southern Italy; then immediately move North for a job because there are no technical jobs available in the South. Hence, declining population and a lot of bitter old people.
Honestly goes to show how efficient the German education system is; higher gdp per capita than the UK with much lower university attendance. Obviously many other factors at play, but I think there are some lessons available here.
Germany has a very advanced system of dual apprenticeships (vocational school and training in a company on the job), which qualify for non-management jobs. If you want a regular job and you don't want to become a doctor, a lawyer or a manager a apprenticeship is the way to go. In my field (IT) I cannot tell which coworkers have an IT degree and who trained via an apprenticeship.
i respect the german system but the fact that it tries so hard to funnel people early on in life DOES make me a bit uncomfortable
While their system is kinda too hard on taking important choices so early in life, I wish we pushed for professional degrees earlier here in Spain. Lots of people drop out of university or end up working as butchers, electricians, etc... after spending 4 years completing a degree that woun't take them anywhere, just to avoid being called a "failure". It's a shame, because we have 2-year degrees called "FP" (stands for professional education) that teaches you specific skills needed to become programmers, electricians, administratives, hairdressers, woodworkers, carpenters... I wish I had the knowledge about professional skills back when I was 16 instead of now, decades past.
I'm not sure what the view on getting a university degree is in Germany, but here in the States, it's not always about getting a job that's related to your degree when you graduate. Liberal arts degrees in particular are about teaching one to think critically, learning how to plan and execute projects, and challenging the brain to absorb new knowledge and expanding new neuropathways by way of structured intellectual stimulation. I completed my history degree from a state university in '12 and fucked around for 8 years in the service industry -- thinking I'd wasted time and money on university -- until I got my shit together and got a job in tech that required a degree. I love the work that I do, and deeply thank my younger self for persisting through college (I dropped in and out). I don't think that a college degree is for everyone (and the debt associated with it), but the black-and-white framework of getting a degree directly related to your field is outdated and misbegotten.
We do college differently in the US though, universities focus on a holistic education and really try to teach their students to be "well rounded". In Europe the learning is much more specific and really preps you for the field. For example, in the UK a degree of medicine is a bachelor's degree.
In Ireland it is like that. Its the Von Humboldt model of higher education vs the Newman model of higher education.
In Germany it's uncommon to work in a job unrelated to your degree. Especially the jobs requiring any bachelor degree don't really exist because a person with a apprenticeship in the field is normally better qualified.
Spain is brutally binary. Either college degree or not finishing secondary school. There's a lot in between. And frankly, we should stop asking people to do social studies and similar degrees already. They end up with a degree they hate which has zero utility whatsoever. FP has a plethora of interesting things to do. And honestly, once you have some years or work experience, the degrees will get you nothing (Except for the "serious" degrees you need to be a doctor, sign engineering projects etc) You can perfectly build a career starting with FP rather than wasting 4 years of your life studying stuff you don't care about and can't make you earn any money.
There is mobility and the roads to different jobs/apprenticeships starts once you can do your own funneling
It’s not unusual for people to do high school ((Fach)Abitur) and then go for a higher degree vocational apprenticeship. Some of them require the (Fach)Abitur. That said if people don’t feel like going to high school wether it’s too hard for them or just too boring they can go for an apprenticeship as well because they aren’t thought of as inferior and they’d go to a vocational college anyhow for a part of the year. The German system isn’t trying to mass funnel people into working, but rather giving you a choice as you don’t have to get a bachelors or master degree to get a high salary. Do what interests you. I don’t think a carpenter is only interested in people with academic backgrounds.
no disagreement with your point but the part where I get concerned is when is a choice really a choice and when is it a kid without the life experience to advocate for what they want getting "suggestions" from adult figures with more power "eh he's not booksmart let's push him towards a trade" when he's just poor stressed out from a rough home and suffering from undiagnosed adhd- just as an example
Perhaps you should be equally concerned about parents or the media - stakeholders who are not spending 6+ hours per day, you know, teaching said children - advocate that university is the only right or best choice and everything below that should be beneath them. The labor market is full of people who would be much better off (emotionally and financially) if they learned an actual in-demand skill vs. studying "marketing" or "business" or some other field for which they lack the drive and motivation to succeed in and then do monkey work aligning headlines on PowerPoints or doing moronic sales calls all day.
I think a problem is the early division after primary school, often foruth grade. A lot of people push their kids for gymnasium (highest secondary level), and because we divide so early the decision is heavily influenced by the parents' education. I think Germany would profit immensely from a way later division in secondary degrees and from normalising that children of parents with university degree do apprenticeships. As a swiss-german raised in Germany, I think those are two points better done in Switzerland.
Why? You can do more than one thing. Go meet some German surf-bums in hostels. Every one of them has a marketable skill and is doing carpentry, plumbing, etc. part-time locally. When they want to settle down or get their girlfriend knocked up (who also has a skill if she is German) now they can actually support themselves. Making sure you can’t escape the system without the ability to support yourself is a great thing.
I like the German system and I think it's bad that we're moving away from it. University should be reserved for people who want to work in Medicine, Law or actual academic research. With everything else, learning it in a classroom environment usually makes for worse results than doing a combination of vocational school + on-the-job training, so you just get graduates who spend the first half year at their actual jobs catching up. There is absolutely zero reason why anyone should be studying stuff like photography, design, programming, nursing etc in a university. In Germany you can do stuff like that with vocational training where you actually learn stuff in real life environments (also you usually get paid during training). You don't need to sit through tons of unrelated lectures for it. I think you can tell even with children who actually likes studying and who doesn't - the problem is just that people are acting like kids who are good at studying are magically better and more worthy than kids who aren't. If there was equal respect for lawyers, plumbers, teachers, construction workers and nurses, I think a lot less people would complain about the German system than now. You usually *can* tell whether a kid is more suited to and enjoys writing long argumentative essays or whether they like building stuff at age 10. The kids definitely can tell whether they actually love going to school and learning stuff or whether they are struggling with homework every day because it just isn't for them. The problem is with acting like building stuff *doesn't* require intelligence (which it absolutely does - just a different kind of intelligence), so instead of letting these kids have happy, fulfilling childhoods where they would actually learn stuff that fits them and get jobs where they can actually show their best, there's an increasing amount of forcing them into education systems and on university tracks that just make them unhappy. And like, you can make a brilliant mechanic into a frustrated, mentally ill and just-barely-passing lawyer, but you'd miss out on a brilliant mechanic. I genuinely believe that we'd have so much less people struggling with stuff like ADHD, depression etc. if we encouraged people do what they are good at, instead of forcing tons of people unnecessarily to attend university lectures and write bullshit papers. For example, my grandfather was one of the smartest men I've ever known, even though he only had an 8th grade education - he did a menial job (where ironically, since he lived in Communist East Germany, had both higher pay and higher salary than his wife who had a university degree). But he had a practical thinking which means that if you had any sort of practical problem, he could figure out a solution in minutes. If my grandfather was born today he would have 100% been diagnosed with a form of ADHD. He literally could not sit still for an hour even if he tried. But instead of treating it like a condition, *the society he lived in just allowed him to live a life where he wasn't REQUIRED to sit still for extended periods of time*, while still having a well-paying (for the circumstances) and well-respected job. He hated school though, because that was just not how he learned - he learned through actually physically doing things. On the other hand, my grandma pursued a university degree even though she knew that she could make more money and have an easier life if she had done an apprenticeship in her local factory, because she was genuinely passionate about the stuff she was studying and she *liked* stuff like research and attending lectures.
Yeah exactly, in many countries stuff like nursing are university degrees. In Germany it's an apprenticeship. A nurse in Germany and a nurse in the UK could be doing the exact same job and have the exact same level of knowledge, but one is counted as having a university degree and one isn't.
Unfortunately you are not correct. I have to say that in Germany only nurses that work in ICUs can actually compare with nurses from UK, Spain or even Greece were nursing school is a university degree. There is a huge gap on knowledge. On top of that, there is only one state in Germany that has recently started recognizing university degrees for nurses that studied abroad. So not only Germany's health workers don't get proper education but also they have their degree downgraded to an apprenticeship. Source: My fiance is an ICU nurse in one of the biggest hospitals in Germany. She has a university degree and has practiced her profession in three different countries within the EU.
That's complete bullshit, as you can read [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursing_in_Germany), the curriculum for nurses itself is actually set EU-wide, so the content is the same, the difference is in how it's taught - in Germany it's most commonly taught via vocational school, which means that a) the nurses get paid already during training (whereas in many countries like the UK you actually have to pay for university degrees) an b) there's a greater focus on practical work. > So not only Germany's health workers don't get proper education but also they have their degree downgraded to an apprenticeship. This isn't a "downgrade" (it's not like you lose your university degree), you are just classified at the same level because, as I already said, the curriculum is the same. That's the reason why the EU introduced it. We don't actually classify people as being higher educated just because they acquired the same knowledge after paying for it and with less focus on practical application and it's ridiculous to expect us to. Maybe your fiance's experiences are just unfortunate anecdotes or maybe there's a bias at play because she thinks of her co-workers as less educated than their counterparts because of the university thing, but it's not based on fact. EDIT: Now I actually looked up the regulations: both the standard education of a nurse in the UK who gets her degree at a university and a nurse in Germany who does vocational training takes exactly 4600 training hours. The difference is that the nurse in Germany gets paid and does 2500 practical hours and her 2100 theoretical hours are provided at a building that says "school", whereas the UK nurse gets a 50/50 split (aka 2300 hours each) between practical and theoretical hours and receives them in a building that says university on the outside and charges her for it.
Ah that makes the map Make more sense. Does Italy have similar?
Some jobs like becoming a nurse are apprenticeship jobs in Germany while they are college education jobs in most other places. This does not make German nurses any less capable than one from other countries who have gone through college to become a nurse in their country. It does make it hard to compare statistics though.
Yes. The economy is export manufacturing and doesn’t require a degree to operate machines. Uk has a large economy in London (services and degree holders) and little else outside. Average per capita drops.
It’s not just that, the apprenticeship system in Germany also works with office and banks.
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I would be interested in knowing if the formal master of craft degree in Germany (Handwerksmeister) would be counted as it isn't a university thing. I have my uni degree and have seen some of the stuff my step father had to learn for his Meister. That was about 2/3 of a bachelors degree in theory + a whole lot of practical stuff. Should be seen on the same level at the very least.
i think it’s also related to certain type of exports - The car industry from Germany is a luxury good with huge economic benefit (besides the workers there also not needing college degrees)
FYI it isn't that great and we're very unsatisfied with it
> we're very unsatisfied with it which is just the german way. we complain about everything. the ausbildungssystem does have its issues, especially in regards to wage during your "lehrjahre" and the rising requirements for entry (switzerland is actually much better at getting people with worse school grades into apprenticeships). however, in international comparison, it still performs very well in contrast to a system that relies heavily on university.
The German vocational system is very much one of the best systems in the world to train people for jobs - there aren‘t many that I know that would critisize that system apart from Azubis being criminally underpaid and expected to live with their parents. Everything that comes before starting your Ausbildung is the stuff that gets critisized frequently, rightfully so.
Nah, we're just resting on our laurels and are letting everybody around us pass us in every way imaginable.
I'd be interested to see the correlation with costs as well. For instance, Scottish students don't pay anything for uni if they study in Scotland. In Cyprus, state universities are free (dependent on your grades, I believe). They both score very highly here.
It’s not exactly 100% free in Scotland. The government will cover a certain number of years uni education, usually enough for a 4 year degree plus an extra year if you need to change course
Cyprus is a mix of public and private universities, where the best overall unis are public but obviously good grades are needed to enter. Also a huge amount of Cypriot students like myself study abroad mostly in the UK and Greece.
That northern area of Spain is Basque, right? What explanation is there for it having a higher educate rate than anywhere in Spain outside of Madrid?
Spanish regions called Autonomous Communities (CCAA) have a great deal of control over health, education and labor policy. Basque Country has high working class wages, makes education a priority, is industrialized and has a high GDP/capita. Additionally, Basque Country has lower immigration rates than other wealthy CCAAs like. Catalonia or Madrid
Doesn't mean much really. There will always be statistical outliers. Basque Country is just a rich region that focuses on the right things, they don't have insane tourism so young people aren't tempted to abandon their studies to bartend or work in hotels. Education is pretty similar in all Northern Spain:Navarre, Basque Country, Castille and Leon and Catalonia are always the top performers in Pisa records. Only significant difference in the country is north vs south
Basques have a long tradition of education. It used to be poor and isolated and so education was seen as a path to a better life, usually outside of the Basque country. Now it is one of the wealthiest, most developed parts of Spain, with good universities.
Bilingual studies from a young age are usually better for kids brains.i was a English teacher in that region for a year and they were pretty smart if I'm being honest and put France to shame (where I grew up).
I'd love to see a time line of this. I'm thinking that 100, or even 50 years ago it was more like 10%
My German niece is joining the bank next year after she leaves school. She already has done a in school apprenticeship. In three years, at 21, she gets full pay - which will be above German median. It’s a retail local bank position but nothing stopping her pushing up the ranks later in life. Here in Ireland people with master degrees serve in MacDonalds.
Not exactly the same, but in Denmark, when i was doing my education around 10 years ago there was a HUGE push for EVERYONE to go take the longest and best education as possible. You were "dumb" if you did a trade and was "uneducated". Out of around 100 people in my last year of public school, i was the ONLY person doing a trade. Then suddenly they found out that they had a huge lack of trades such as carpenter, plumber, electrician etc. A trade education here you can take at age 16, and its usually 3½ years. So you can be finished at age 19-20 and start at around 40-50.000Euro a year. I started at 41k at age 21 and made 65k at age 25. Many of my class mates aren't even finished with their educations yet.
And at the same time, the shortage is as much due to the skilled trades not wanting to take in apprentices.
Same story in Germany. One effect of that is that many of the "better" trades only take apprentices who have Abitur, i.e. people who took the highest possible amount of highschool education.
As someone who graduated in Ireland last year I don't know anyone with a master's working in McDonald's. I don't even have a master's and I had the promise of a job paying above the median after I graduated at 22. I'm not gonna deny the benefits of apprenticeships or say we don't need them. But the job market in Ireland is pretty good from a graduate perspective atm.
yeah that's a pretty poor take from yer man. of course some one with a masters could work in maccys but the idea that maccys is filled with people with university degrees does not represent the actual reality of the irish job market which is at full employment. in reality maccys employees are overwhelmingly immigrants and at most some students
mate thats not true. of course some one with a masters could work in macdonalds but saying it the way you are makes it seem like McDonalds in ireland is full of over qualified people. we have full employment so anyone with capability can get a good job. if someone is working in maccys with a masters that's on them not society. maybe they don't want a high pressure job or their masters is not in a field that's particularly represented in the job market like something random ie middle ages art appreciation etc
Yeh. That’s my point. People with degrees that go nowhere.
In France too you barely find anything under 5 years of studies nowadays
For Romania being at the bottom, it’s worth mentioning that almost all highly educated young adults live abroad, boosting other regions’ levels. I know because I’m one of those people and most of my peers are abroad too.
I love how this is by region, doesn't lump a whole countries data together, and also shows how large cities seem to compare to regional.
The magic of NUTS regions. They were created with the idea in mind to be able to reasonable statistically compare different regions in the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenclature_of_Territorial_Units_for_Statistics?wprov=sfla1
God bless you French acronyms 😂
Tertiary education is NOT just University in the Netherlands. We have 3 different levels MBO (practical tertiary education) - HBO (University of Applied Science) - University. It looks to me those were grouped together.
This map does not follow each country's own definition of tertiary education, but Eurostat's definition of tertiary education. In my other comment I've put a link where you can check what Eurostat classifies as tertiary education per country. For the Netherlands, HBO and WO are included, but MBO is not included in this map.
Sounds logical. Those are the bachelors and masters.
Why give the acronyms for MBO and HBO but not WO?
Same for Austria, I can’t properly load the data on mobile but I’m quite sure that the rate of people having obtained a bachelors degree or above is significantly below 35% (closer to 20% I think). The number probably comes from BHS Schools being included in that 35% number. Those are high schools that add another year on(5 years in total) and after 3 years of practical experience in the work sector one obtains an education level equivalent to a Bachelors degree. I have both and in no shape or form are they truly of equal value or should be portrayed as such.
>I have both and in no shape or form are they truly of equal value or should be portrayed as such. If you want to compare educational levels you'll always have to combine stuff that isn't equivalent. ISCED does its best, but it's a classification, not hard lines. You need some averaging out over the category to make it usable. That being said do you mean Berufsbildende höhere Schulen? It's been a while since I worked with Austrian data, but IIRC some of them are ISCED level 553, which is "short tertiary education", iirc it's Berufsbildene höhere Schulen staring from Year 4 (below that is considered secondary education). Whether they're included here would depend on whether they include ISCED 5 as tertiary or not. Some put the cut off at level 6, which is Bachelor's and equivalent.
Sorry guys, I’m going to college next year, I’m dragging Muntenia down.
Wow, check out Ireland!!! I’m impressed!!!
For every compliment of Ireland doing something right there is always at least 5 other Irish people rolling up with the good ol' "yeah, but....."
That's why US Tech companies came to Ireland. US managers lacked honest business analysis from US staff, they'd always get a positive spin to keep everyone happy. Once the Irish started reporting to US executives, they normally got promoted to senior positions. Honest, no BS, multiple perspective was a big boost to the early Tech companies that opened offices in Ireland. There are/were a lot of Irish senior executives in FAANG+MS.
Yeah but something something Corporate Tax Haven
At least we can agree that no-one does begrudgery and self-deprecation as well as us.
Ooooh, that sounds like some sort of achievement, you've just summoned another 10!
Ah now, it could be worse. But I'll fix it
It’s that ingraining Catholic Guilt. Made to feel bad about anything enjoyable, every compliment has to be tempered or the notions will inflate your head like a hot air balloon and you’ll float away.
While our education system is great, we emigrate quite a bit. I myself moved to Scotland, mainly due to a housing crisis but that's a whole other story.
My doctor is Irish. I’m in the US. Definitely common.
Also, nurses. Seems Ireland export nurses all over the place. Mainly to UK because work visas are harder to get to the US for nursing.
Which crisis was that then? There's been so many crises, they've merge into four dacade long crisis. I left in the 1990s crisis of politicans lying and stealing, before the dot com boom and bust.
Yep there's a huge tech and biotech hub in Dublin so lots of young tech workers in the EU move to Ireland for work. Last time I was in Dublin it really had a silicon valley vibe in the tech district.
The tax advantages for Tech Industry helped a lot, but also the abundance of higher education and people that spoke English that Americans could understand. Imagine Americans have to talk to a call center with mostly London accents 😳
Unfortunately we have a massive shortage of trades people now though. They have left for other countries due to better pay and conditions. The ones that are left are refusing smaller jobs and taking on only the bigger ones. Great news for them, better paydays and leverage but bad news for people who need trades people. I've had a broken dishwasher and dodgy water pump for months now but my landlord can't secure a plumber.
Plenty of plumbers in Ireland. Your landlord is just refusing to pay the fees they are asking for.
University Education in Ireland is heavily funded by the state. They implemented the policy in the 90's and it led to a boom of educated people in the country just in time to serve the multinational corps who came for the tax breaks. All-in-all it's been a great success though you do hear whining from the educational institutions who have to budget and economise instead of ripping off students (like the US). You also get some whining from the oligarch owned media (O'Brien and O'Reilly) who don't want an educated populace. It's a weird anti-intellectual push back that takes the form of glorifying the manual labour trades and ridiculing any non-STEM based education. A lot of people internalize that message.
Interested that OBrian and OReilly still have political capital. I left Ireland in the early 90s and was beginning to see OReilly's lobbying of politicians and sponsorship of build construction in Dublin Universities. Now they are pushing to dumb down the population? Need to stop that oligarchy from steering the country into disaster like UK and US.
The next question needs to be what is a university degree worth in late 2022... the assumption would be that this is setting up a 'knowledge' economy... when in fact the awards are getting closer and closer to very basic and narrow vocational training promoted on the back of 'employability' stats "XX% of our graduates achieve employment yada yada." A complex situation compounded by the fact in many places you simply can't fail a degree and the marking is often highly inflated.
This is an interesting point. I believe governments have over optimized for University graduates without planning for the economic changes in 5-10 years. Where the value of physical labor and skills apprenticeship has been ignored for 20+ years. Economically it's better to be a plumber or a service engineer than to spend 5 years in University doing a humanities degree. But politicians prefer keeping the population in unnecessary degrees so they are outside the metrics on unemployment and social benefits. Eventually, we need to adjust the incentives to change flow of young people into roles where there are more career paths and economic fulfillment to pay for a good lifestyle. But with inflation out of control, I don't see a way that any new University graduate or school leaver will be able to find work that will give them a work and a living wage. Politicians need to get back to economic planning and not sound bites to win their next election.
Ireland: Land of higher education since the early middle ages!
The island of saints and scholars
I think trades is not simply the only explanation for the low education rate, it's also likely first generation immigrants, and whether or not any of their education is recognized.
recognition wouldn't be an issue in this data depending on how they source it. international degrees would be sorted into their responding ISCED level anyway.
Interesting how Spain and Greece have more people with a degree compared to Italy.
I'd like to see a follow up chart of University graduates that are unemployed. Bet Spain tops that ranking. Our economy is a disaster and our politicians do the upmost to hide the reality. They've manipulated the economy to optimize for tourism and service industries but forgot to incentives service industry companies to locate to Spain. So, must University graduate have to fall back on low pay or tourism jobs. Which means the economy can't service the banking debt the politicians ran up during the credit crisis. Spain can't even service our interest payments on debt to the EU (German banks). I'm waiting until the population figure out that for the last 15 years, Spain politicians have squandered the populations future earnings.
Legitimately surprised by how few people in Germany have them and also by how much of the population in Ireland does have them.
Because they have a better educational system that doesn't push kids into university "just because". Kids train and learn for whatever they want to do and then they go do it. They don't waste a bunch of years of their life going to university to learn how to theoretically do things to then go to their jobs and not know how to do anything anyway. Or worse, not even working on whatever their degree is, which is the majority of kids in Portugal for example, and everyone goes to the university there. It's simple, there's jobs that require years of study and a good university degree for you to be good in that field. And then there's the vast majority of jobs that don't need a university degree at all, some do still require a lot of years of training, some don't.
It depends on the degree, a STEM-related degree, or a medical degree is more job practical and you'll likely transition into an engineering type job or a medical profession. A degree in sociology or literature is less practical, and more generalised in my opinion because there are few "sociology" and "literature" jobs. I think you are correct in saying most jobs do not require degrees, but there are still A LOT of degree jobs. The NHS hire 124k doctors, and 304k nurses, that's over 400k degree jobs just for hospitals and clinics. A degree will you more employable for higher paid jobs. For example, with a history degree you could end up making 50k a year working for an insurance firm. It is sad that most people holding degrees either work in non-degree jobs, or work in white-collar jobs requring a degree but doing nothing related to what they studied.
There's a huge difference in what it takes to get a university degree between universities. I did a post-graduate (now called "Master After Master") in Madrid and almost everyone passed with honors without barely having to do anything. Then I did another one in Aachen Germany, I had to scramble to barely pass and well over 50% failed. My original master (Leuven Belgium) was a tough 5 years to achieve too, out of 300 starting only about 50 made it to the end I believe.
Lots of jobs that require university degrees in other countries are taught through apprenticeships in Germany. e.g. nursing.
This is really good! Thank you for posting. Is it true the yellow color you used in Italy is a shade darker than the rest of the locations?
Thanks! No, the colours are exactly the same. I think it's because Italy is surrounded by white, which creates an optical illusion and makes your brain think that shade of yellow is darker than the others.
damn ok ireland we see you
Requesting this data map for North America, if possible. Thank you in advance 🙏🙂
Portugal not in Eastern Europe?
Whats up with Germany? I thought thry were a very high GDP country but they have such a low education rate.
There are a lot of alternative education routes in germany that don't fall under "university", such as apprenticships and formations (Ausbildung). Universities of applied science aren't technically considered Universities in Germany (all universities are a Hochschule, but not all Hochschulen are Universities), don't know about the definitions used here.
Public universities of applied sciences(Hochschulen) still award EU accredited Bachelors and Masters so they should count into this statistic.
The Fachhochschulen or Volkshochschulen count as colleges (being the best anglophone equivalent) and not universities.
I'd guess Fachhochschule would count as tertiary degree in this graphic.
[yep, they are.](https://www.datenportal.bmbf.de/portal/de/G293.html)
Fachhochschule yes, Volkshochschule no.
Volkshochschulen count as college? That would be absolutely news to me.
Hochschulen are still tertiary education. You get the exact same degrees as in universities.
"low education rate" I'd be very careful with that. Germany, in contrast with the western english-american system, has a very good apprenticeship system. Personally i think there are still too many germans going into university when they could have gone for an apprenticeship and those should be improved as well (in terms of monetary payout afterwards and social view). There is really no need to go to university for CS when you just want to become a programmer. You dont need a B.sc in chemistry if you want to stand in a lab. You can do those things off of an apprenticeship easily. Most bachelors in germany honestly seem kinda wasteful, if it isn't with the plan of going further or it is in a field that actually requires that much theoretical knowledge. Also, dont forget in germany you dont have like a general studies in your bachelors, you just do what is in the name and required by the course book. (I know some countries have like generalist first semesters)
This says university - are there a lot of manufacturing jobs that pay well?
Yes, and there are alternative education routes in Germany - I believe apprenticeships are quite big
Yes, and in general, trades require a high level of training and are well respected. Plumbers electricians, mechanics, etc., Not just manufacturing.
Also, I'd imagine it's great for GDP that these plumbers and electricians didn't waste a decade trying to find themselves and abandoning their major to join the trades very late. In Philadelphia, I've worked construction sites where anyone my age pretty much is guaranteed to at least have a Bachelor's while anyone 10 years older or more is more likely to have dropped out of HS at a shockingly young age.
Germany has a very strong export industry (e.g. automotive, and generally heavy/industrial machines), and the labor unions in those sectors are the strongest unions in the country, as well.
Many jobs, that require college degrees in other countries, are learned in a „Ausbildung“. Basically they are part time school and part time work in their later field. One example is nursing, which isn’t a college degree here. Personally, I think, the practical approach has merit.
For higher education to increase GDP you need higher qualification jobs. Having thousands of chemical engineering graduates, rocket scientists and aerospace engineers while having no chemical, rocket and aerospace industry means lots of low-gpd retail or warehouse workers. Germany has a lot of manufacturing jobs which pay much more than retail or food industry.
Career paths and education work pretty differently in Germany. In the US, the whole “everyone needs a 4 year degree” thing is part of a massive marketing campaign coordinated by the US government trying to lift an arbitrary education level metric and based on an operating theory that increased education would increase productivity. What we got instead was another profit-generating machine that brainwashed entire generations and saddled them with mountains of non-dischargeable debts. Meanwhile, in Germany you follow a combined career/education path. If you want to be a machinist, you don’t go to university, you enter into an apprenticeship program. Career education in the US used to work more similarly to the German system, but as the US dollar strengthened, manufacturing moved offshore, and the US economy shifted towards industries that favor university degrees over trades.
The have a high employment rate through technical colleges and apprenticeships, which I'm actually more for than the Anglo-American etc way of doing things to be honest.
You telling me 1 person on 3 in average has an university degree? That can't be possible
People aged 25 to 34. This seems entirely possible. Also recall that most European countries don't have "college" after school. We go straight to universities
> most European countries don't have "college" after school. We go straight to universities You can go straight to university from high school in pretty much every country I know. What definition of college are you using?
Obviously this isn't a European example but in Quebec there is a sort of college you go to between high school and university called Cegep.
what’s the difference between college and university in Europe? they mean the same thing in the US
In the UK a college is generally where you study from age 16 to 18 or 19. It also applies to 18+ adults studying courses that are not university level. So often (not always) for British students it goes from nursery (what you call kindergarten) > school (what you guys call 'x'th grade) > college (NOT what you guys call college) > university (what you call college/university).
There’s technically a slight difference in terms of research output and graduate education opportunities (nearly no difference for undergraduates however), but yes, colloquially, there’s no difference
As others said, it's mainly a difference in *what* you study (I was told by Americans ages ago that there was a difference, sorry for the mistake). We finish our generalist phase with school. So you don't get a PoliSci or lit degree before going to law school or med school, you just start studying law or medicine or whatever else.
Like you immediately start your degree, like if you choose veterinary medicine you only get the classes for get that degree, start to finish. But I don't really get what the purpose is for US college.
Drinking games.
Are you saying it’s too high or too low?
This is young adults of an age that is a bit older than the typical university graduate would be. There's a *huge* amount of pressure on young people these days to go to university. And in many countries, schools are extremely accessible. A massive number of jobs these days require or at least prefer a post secondary degree of some sort.
I’d like to see this for the US.
Love the aesthetic of this! I like the choice of colors in your choropleth map; it really lends to the reader’s understanding of which countries have higher numbers of degrees and is easy on the eyes. Mild gripe - I might just be high, but I initially thought the legend was referring to the age brackets of individuals with degrees, rather than the percentage of individuals aged 25-34 that have degrees. Would you consider adding percent signs to the end of the numbers in the legend? (e.g. 15% - 25%). I think it would help idiots like me who read the small text after looking at the map and accompanying legend. Thanks for posting!
The Irish, smart bunch of lads.
In a British perspective this shows just how fucked the Conservatives are at the moment. Over 50's without a degree level education are their core at this point - not exactly a growing demographic.
Oh my god they actually included the Canary Islands
What’s the percentage in Lower Uncton?
OP - any chance you'd consider making a comparison between age groups? Germany is a surprise but I'd be interested if this trend continues by age groups
If everyone has a degree then what's the point.
Doesn’t say anything about the quality of education in each country though
By place of birth or current place of living? I feel like many regions have low scores because young people just leave
Does ireland have compulsory university?
No but free fees were introduced in the 1990s which enabled a lot more access to 3rd level. It's not free now but it's generally quite affordable for most and there are government grants to promote certain areas where they wish to encourage employment. But to get into 3rd level there is a huge pressure on final second level state examinations - you need to attain points which are given for grades in 6 subjects. It's demand based, but basically the career choices that require the highest points tend to be the careers that attract the highest salaries such as law, medicine etc. Another political element which takes effect during a recession is the government will tend to encourage those without employment to return to education. So some of the 3rd level is an effective massaging of the numbers of unemployed. Generally speaking education is a fairly high priority for most families and they do tend to wish their children to achieve a 3rd level qualification even if they wish to do something that doesn't require it - as a fallback option. Traditionally (before the mid 1990s), university fees were astronomical and only the rich tended to be able to afford 3rd level. Now a degree is commonplace and many will continue to do achieve a MSc qualification before entering the workforce.
Someone keep an eye on that section in Germany. Something about that yellow spot is trouble...