The cost of everything and the value of nothing

May 21, 2025

Universities are another victim of the failure of privatisation. Universities should be a place of higher learning and students should have to qualify to enter. If they successfully complete their degrees, they should be free.

I went to a technical school, a pathway to a trade or becoming a mother. Down the road was a high school which was better regarded and a pathway to university.

I became a tradie and built a wonderfull life from that base, but I was just a tradie working for some time in sewer treatment. How much lower than that can you get? Then we went through a phase where “everyone should go to uni".

Then there was a phase when unis had to be self-funding/privatised. The value of a degree has been lost to the cost of a degree and we have a shortage of tradies and many unemployable people with degrees and large HECS debts.

We are now trying to modify the apprenticeship system to fast-track trade training to fix the tradie shortage and stop the capitalist style supply and demand tradie wage boom.

Does anyone actually learn ?