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Comment by sp527 | Hacker News Reader

> Undergrad is job prep for most people and colleges are doing a disservice by pretending it's not.

This is a completely inverted way to frame it. Higher education shouldn't be perverted by the whims of the labor market. Universities don't need to change their curriculums. Companies need to change their hiring standards.

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It shouldn't be, but for most people entering into it, becoming highly desirable on the job/employee market is the chief motivator. If a university doesn't cater to that demand, the students will go elsewhere.

I don't disagree. And maybe students should go elsewhere. Maybe our society should rethink what qualifications it seeks of prospective entrants to the labor force.

What should not change, however, is the fundamental nature of academia. That model is inviolate and has propelled much progress in our species' collective knowledge. In fact, I think the hijacking of higher education as an assembly line to furnish credentials wholesale is an unforgivable adulteration of that institution.

Agreed, but debasing a valued asset for short-term gain is as old as the human species. In the past, it was coinage that was shaved and alloyed. Stanford's reputation and the CS degree's reputation are valuable assets today, so it's hardly surprising that some amoral administrator decided to trade them away for increased enrollment.

If only higher education weren't already perverted by the realities of greed and incompetent bureaucracy leading to our little student debt problem inconveniencing a handful of students in the country /s

This is very a bold straw man.

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