Not quite - when you look at university graduates you will find a jobless rate of 10%-25% in Europe (I think Spain borders the 50% mark).
Unemployment of those in Europe with tertiary education: ~8%.
Unemployment 25-64 of those witout high school in Spain: 31.2%
Unemployment 25-64 of those with high school in Spain: 21.9%
Unemployment 25-64 of those with some tertiary education in Spain: 14%
Things are much worse right across Europe without tertiary education.
Reference.
A degree does not automatically guarantee that you are very smart or provide productive input into a business.
There is a massive conceptual difference between
statistical expectation(what I am discussing), and "automatic guarantees". For the former, you are using a statistic that allows you to reason effectively about the likelihood of various outcomes, for the latter, you are effectively choosing outliers as counterexamples (which always exist, since there are no automatic guarantees - I can guarantee that
) that suite your hypothesis, and are throwing away all the rest of the data. You can't make sensible choices this way.
I have come across employees in the past who could not code themselves out of a wet paper bag, but had the tenacity to study and score very well in exams. Just because someone has good theoretical skills does not mean that he can apply that knowledge.
If you knew someone who won the lottery, would you tell everyone to invest all their money in lottery tickets? You are reasoning based on what is likely an outlier in a small sample set.
Gaining experience as an eventual certainty is not always the case - the most basic test for this is to ask your staff what they have learned/gained in knowledge today/this week/this month.
I think you missed the point entirely here: We are comparing the experience gained by a single person, let's call him "Joe" for example, in two hypothetical situations: one where he has some work experience, and one where he has only a degree. Both Joe's go to work - 10 years later, both Joe-with-a-degree and Joe-without-a-degree now have experience, but Joe-without-a-degree, still doesn't have a degree.
The reason they get similar experiences, is because they are
almost the same person - although depending on the nature of the experience, Joe-with-a-degree may gain even more experience, because he may be able to do work that wasn't accessible to Joe-without-a-degree. If the work doesn't require any of the skills learned in the degree at all, then Joe-without-a-degree will do better, because he has a slight edge on experience. Generally, work that requires a degree pays more, since there is relatively less competition for these positions.
I think a degree will help you nowadays to get hired for your first job, but to be honest if you get fired today and the only thing you have to show on your CV are a few years of work and a degree (but no real projects/skills you could reuse elsewhere), you will struggle to find a new job.
Yes, if you are a loser with or without a degree, you will have trouble finding a job. The important bit, is that if you
aren't a loser, a combination of your degree and the nature of your experience will determine how employable you are, and what sort of income you can expect. The intrinsic value of a degree becomes less valuable as you gain experience, however, having the degree in the first place,
tends to dictate the nature of your experience throughout your career.
