Australia and the World Past and Present

Certain professions have long required a university degree.

They were a must if you wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer or a pharmacist.

Practicing as a doctor required specialist knowledge and practical experience that could only be acquired in a specialist settling.

Sometimes I reflect on the experiences of the baby boomer generation.

They were born into a world with a narrower array of jobs and professions than today.

Work was in, in many ways, simpler than it is today.

There were more entry-level jobs.

And these were rendered obsolete through technology less often than the lower-level administration roles of today.

Baby boomers would often tell me that if they were tired of their job, they could just walk down the street and walk straight into another role.

Barriers to entry were far fewer than we see today.

Many people looking for work these days will search online.

Advertised roles may attract hundreds of applications.

Often these applications are sorted automatically by computer applications.

The whole recruitment process has become much more cumbersome – for both employees and employers.

With so many applicants for a single role, it is much easier for a company to find a perfect fit than it is a for a worker to find the perfect role.

Prior to the 1990s, only of a small percentage of Australians went to university – perhaps 1 in 10.

University graduates were held in high esteem, in part because there was so few of them.

Most people began their careers in entry level – sometimes menial roles – and steadily worked their way up in a company. They often spent a long time at one company, often rising to become senior management or even the CEO. A gap between an individual’s first role at a company and their last could be very wide.

At some point, going to university became the thing to do. Go to uni, get a degree, get a good job and benefit. This was the mantra.

University students grew in increasing numbers. Today, around 1 in 3 of young Australian adults have a university degree.

More people were armed with degrees. It became an expectation that employees would be equipped them. They became standard. Now employers were looking for those with a master’s degree. And there are a lot of those floating around these days too. So onward to a PhD. And on and on it goes.

All of this formal education has a profound effect on society – and not just in a positive way.

One may be 18 if one makes it all the way through high school. A degree will take 3 or 4 years to complete (if done full-time). A masters degree will take 2 years of your life. Add 3 or 4 years for a PhD. If you study right through, with no gaps, you might be 27 or 28 by this stage.

In historical terms, that is very late to be starting a career. In times gone by, many students would have exited from schooling at age 15 or 16 – straight into the workforce and straight into earning a salary.

Further education is earning delayed.

Part of the rationale of going to university for a few years was to increase your earning potential over the course of your career.

Some will realise this gain. But many have come out of university with their degree, but can find that they only get roles that are not on par with the years of learning that they have put in. In other words, in an economic sense, for these individuals, their years of extra study have not been worth it. The sacrifice of time and effort has not translated into economic gain.

Longer periods of formal study means taking on student debt and years without a decent salary. This leads to stunted savings, no deposit for a home, delaying starting a family, or limiting the number of children one has.

More years in education can actually lead to a less secure financial position, less chance of entering the housing market and more stress injected into family life.

Artificial Intelligence is having a major effect on education and work.

In the past, if a student had graduated with a university degree, an employer could have confidence that the student was competent in their field of study, that they had the language skills to be able to read the associated literature, understand the content, write up reports etc.

In the past, all of these things took considerable time and energy.

Now, in just a few seconds, an AI program can spit out well-constructed reports.

In the past, specialist knowledge was harder to access and understand. Graduates brought their knowledge with them into businesses.

Now, the knowledge exists quite independent of people.

Suddenly, vast armies of graduates have been rendered obsolete.

Information is out-of-date almost as soon as it is published. What is the meaning of a degree? Not much it would seem. Even universities seem not to value to the information accrued for a degree – after a certain period of time.

Whatever is current is seen as valuable. The current curriculum – yes. But last year’s curriculum – less so. And if you did your degree 10 years ago? Ancient history as far as most faculties are concerned.

The cost of university degree has never been higher. But perhaps the esteem in which they are held has perhaps never been lower.

In most ways – perhaps all – an AI program can outperform students in their assignments. AI is certainly much faster.

And this is not only the case for students. AI can generate new scholarly articles for publication in academic journals, mark papers, create examination papers, and prepare lecture notes.

We may also ask, what is the use of a university lecturer?

For someone in my forties, I have seen vast changes in education in my lifetime.

Everything has become faster.

The data available today has never been greater.

The pace of knowledge production has never been higher.

The focus used to be on ‘book learning’.

Today, there is a greater focus on digital learning. Material is online. The medium of instruction is often digital. The mode of communication is often digital.

Before the rise of AI, there will still limits on production. It was still people who were creating material.

With the rise of AI, many tasks can be done faster than ever before. And crucially, AI makes information that was previously quite inaccessible available almost instantaneously.

Things have changed.