Should the 3 year degree be phased out?

[wild goose chase]

Sometimes colleges sell themselves on the fact that their vocational training is practical. (eg. I remember those "George Brown gets you the job" ads a while back).

Interestingly, something like 20% of Canadians have a college diploma as their highest educational attainment, while only 10% in the US do. In the US, a lot more get bachelor's degrees for vocational subjects (like hotel management).

Yeah, I remember reading a study that claimed that Canada was the most educated country in the world and I thought it was kind of misleading -- I think Canadians are statistically more likely to have post-secondary degrees than any other nation and we have fewer high school dropouts, but I think Americans have more bachelor's and professional degrees.

So, why is the 2-year degree for vocational jobs so unpopular stateside? Is being "overqualified" less of an issue stateside because of the bigger and better job market for university grads there, or the price relative to the skills/advantages learned from doing a 4-year bachelor's (which I'd still think would be pricier than here) a better deal versus a shorter degree there? Americans are richer than Canadians on average, right, but I don't know if that makes that much of a difference. No idea how accurately this represents real life, but my Canadian university-educated friends are much more likely to complain about being "overqualified" for a job than my American ones (and you also hear that "cliche" about people with advanced degrees driving taxis etc. much more in Canada than stateside).

 

[King of Kensington]

No idea how accurately this represents real life, but my Canadian university-educated friends are much more likely to complain about being "overqualified" for a job than my American ones (and you also hear that "cliche" about people with advanced degrees driving taxis etc. much more in Canada than stateside).

In the US, colleges and universities are much more "bifurcated." At the top end, you have the Ivies, the elite liberal arts colleges, the University of California system etc. At the bottom end, you have Bible colleges, the less prestigious non-flagship state colleges etc. So it matters there more where you obtain your bachelor's.

Here that really isn't the case. You don't have investment banks that only recruit at Queen's or McGill etc. You're not "frozen out" of the top graduate and professional schools because you attended a low-ranked undergrad institution. Yes, there are more private school kids at Queen's than at Brock, and on average I'm sure Queen's grads earn more than Brock grads, but the difference is not nearly as big as say Harvard and Salem State College.

U of T is our country's top research institution and has the country's top professional and graduate programs. But at the undergrad level it has a different mandate and is more of a "mass institution" - i.e. being a U of T BA in and of itself doesn't impress people.

 

[King of Kensington]

I think there is also more "credential inflation" in the US. For instance, 88% of teachers in NYS have Masters degrees, but the requirements to get that are no more and probably less than here (particularly with the new curriculum), where teachers are granted "just" a bachelor's degree.

 

[Johnny Au]

Don't forget about NCAA!

Collegiate sports is much more popular in the United States than in Canada.

In fact, March Madness consistently draws larger crowds than NHL games in the United States.

Many promising Canadian athletes (primarily excluding those who participate in winter sports) attend American universities.