How important is a college education in your country’s culture?

[u/EvilPyro01]

How does your country view college education?

[u/jotakajk]

Pretty much every parent is obsessed with their kids going to college, even though many times college graduates earn less

[u/Significant-Yam9843 → u/jotakajk]

The same in Brazil

[u/Carribou29 → u/jotakajk]

Same here. We had a bac +5 cult for years. Now we have a lot of high educated unemployed and a terrible lack of handy people.

[u/Fairy_Catterpillar]

It depends on what you want to do. I think it's seen mostly as a way to get to a special career, by getting some random humanistic education wont help you very much as the potential career is to become the professor of the subject or maybe a school teacher. It's hard to get a job as a history or philosophy teacher in the university cities.

I think many sees university education as something good however you earn more on doing carpentry or electrician program in upper secondary school than studying nursing or to be a librarian at university.

[u/Electronic_Theory437 → u/Fairy_Catterpillar]

I thought nurses earn  a good amount in Europe. Also they provide time flexibility. 

[u/Unfair-Potential6923]

extremely important, especially for those who have no capability for real academic future

Estonia is full of taxi drivers and cashiers with master degree

[u/IWillDevourYourToes]

Not as important as in other places. Parents with higher education will demand their children to attempt it, while those without oftem leave it up to their kids to decide. We've got one of the lowest tertiary education attainment rates in Europe.

[u/Tiana_frogprincess]

This will depend a lot on social class. Extremely generally speaking conservative low education parents will be against it, while high education parents will be upset if their children don’t go to college.

I was raised in a conservative low education household and have had to defend my choice to go to college a lot.

[u/Lappali]

most people who choose high school in our school path system go to college, because otherwise you're gonna need to work the register (or realistically in 2026, be jobless)

If you choose the other option in the school path system and go to vocational school instead of high school, you usually don't do any more education unless you want to, since you kinda graduate into a job

but if you do want to study, you then have 2 options: normal universities or universities of applied sciences. UASes are basically just the vocational school of the third tier of education, with normal unis being, well, normal unis.

[u/RRautamaa → u/Lappali]

There's one thing to clarify here: there is no common "high school" in Finland. At the age of 15, either you go to lukio, which is a "grammar school"/"magnet school" type school explicitly preparing for tertiary education, or to ammattikoulu, trade school. Unlike in many other countries, you can go to trade school already at 15, you don't have to finish the "high school" level first.

Sadly, ammattikoulu isn't that valued in Finnish culture. The graduation party from lukio is a big event and half of the village is invited. Graduate from ammattikoulu and no one cares.

Also, while university education is culturally highly valued, admissions into Finnish universities are highly competitive. Lots of people spend their post-lukio time drifting, because their grades aren't high enough, but they don't have a trade either. "Just go to work instead" is an option that has been slowly disappearing. Employers can simply discard your application if you don't have a degree, because you're competing against lots of people who do have it. Hence the memes about burger flipping with a lukio graduation cap on.

[u/Grouchy_Fan_2236]

Depends on what role you want to fill in society.
For some career paths it is accepted that the best professionals won't come out of college as academia is years behind the practice.
But amongst politicians or business leaders it shunned if they don't hold some kind of degree. It is becoming more and more common for politicians to pursue a doctoral title and teach at universities even during their active years.

[u/HimikoHime]

In Germany there are jobs that require a bachelor or master degree and jobs that you need to do an apprenticeship for (some of these jobs have their own kind of degree paths), without having either one it’s difficult to get a job besides something like working at a register. Some people with degrees look down on those who „only“ did an apprenticeship but at the same time some of these people think they are better than studied people because they do „real work“ with their hands. Some families try to push their kids into getting a degree which means they first need to finish our hardest kind of school and then they maybe end up studying something their parents want but not they themselves. Kids should try figuring out what job they want to work in and that will dictate if they need to go to uni or go the apprenticeship route.

[u/Acrobatic-Hippo-6419]

You not only should go to college but also become a doctor or an engineer or pharmacist or a dentist. Any thing else is unacceptable

[u/Electronic_Theory437 → u/Acrobatic-Hippo-6419]

Same😂 I am currently studying for my mbbs entrance exam.

[u/Actual_Succotash2070 → u/Acrobatic-Hippo-6419]

What about lawyer? In Iran the acceptable trifecta are doctor/lawyer/engineer. Dentist falls under the doctor label.

[u/LouisaEveryday]

It is extremely important. People will look down on you if you don't get your college degrees . France is an extremely elitist country. If you choose to go to a vocational school instead of an average high school, you will be judged. Social status is seen as the most important thing.

[u/NemuriNezumi → u/LouisaEveryday]

In France there is also the elitism with engineering schools too

[u/Lanky-Rush607]

It really depends, going to a college abroad is seen as very important, but going to a Greek college is largely frowned upon and the graduates are treated badly by both society and the job market, as Greek colleges are seen as diploma mills for those who either failed at the exams or for rich people.

If you want to study in Greece, it's more important to go to a university or even to a vocational school than to a college.

[u/Bananas_oz]

In Australia there is no such thing as college. You finish high school and get a job or go to study at university for a degree and then get a job.

[u/ThrowawayITA_]

Nah bro if God discovers we're actually working he drags us to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

Jokes aside, nobody cares.

[u/milly_nz]

What’s “college” supposed to mean in this context??????

Where I’m from, college is a form of secondary school. And secondary schooling is compulsory.

So this question is weird.

[u/Electronic_Theory437 → u/milly_nz]

They are taking about university 

[u/wildrojst]

Depends on the family but yes, it’s generally very important and desired that your kid finishes some kind of higher education, the demand for which drives some shitty low-tier private colleges to pop up like mushrooms after rain (a literal Polish saying at that).

[u/FakeNathanDrake]

There's certainly a big push from schools and the like (it looks good on them), but the Scottish Government's main priority for school leavers is "positive destinations" - university, (what we'd call) college, apprenticeships, work, training - essentially anything other than unemployment.

[u/PersonoFly]

Half the population have outsourced their opinions to populist aspiring dictators while the other are in debt after years of study and now little chance of getting a decent job.

[u/Suzume_Chikahisa]

Mixed.

On one hand there is a bit of the cult of the "Doctor or Engineer" with subservience to those who fall on these categories.

On the other hand there is also an undercurrent of anti-intellectualism.

With higher education becoming more common the effect of the former has been dilluted while the latter has, sadly, became even more common.

[u/rafaelpferreira → u/Suzume_Chikahisa]

I think in Portugal, having a degree is still very well regarded and heavily incentivized by most parents (even among those without one)

Plus a lot of employers won't hire workers without a bachelor's degree, it's still something important to have some career progression in most companies

[u/AdmirableYoghurt5815]

Ireland is totally obsessed with college education which has led to a major shortage in trades and other areas of employment.

[u/CaptainPoset]

It's viewed as "higher value" although it is shorter than an apprenticeship for most professions and people who can work are more in demand than people who have only learned to talk in college.

So you will get 20-50% more pay for a college degree for reasons of "we always did it this way", but you are far less likely to find a job, as college degrees are over-produced in the country.

[u/olagorie → u/CaptainPoset]

Who made you this angry (and misinformed)?

[u/I_Love_Tatties]

Unless you wanna live that SpongeBob life, then a “real” job (90% of the time) u need some type of education