There seems to be a mismatch between what the Taiwanese education system produces, and what the economy needs. For e.g., the Taiwanese govt is heavily promoting a switch to renewable energy, esp. offshore wind. Wind farm developers and wind turbine OEMs need installation and service technicians. Typically in Northern Europe (where most offshore wind is currently) these technicans are drawn from the skilled blue-collar trades (e.g.electricians, toolmakers etc.), who have normally done 3 years of training/apprenticeship and have several years experience. However in Taiwan, such people do not exist in sufficient quantity and quality. Instead the industry is forced to use engineering graduates, who may not have the requisite 'hands-on' experience. I don't know if this is because talented young people in Taiwan do not choose to be skilled tradesmen, or if the vocational training/apprenticeship set-up is not 'fit for purpose' for a modern economy. By way of comparison, 40% of students in Denmark choose the vocational route. Many students who are talented/intelligent choose the vocational route rather than the academic. This is also the case for the rest of Scandinavia and Germany/Netherlands/Switzerland/Austria. For e.g. in Switzerland and Germany only 20% of any age cohort pursue a university education. Many students serve technical/commercial apprenticeships rather than go to university, including those who may have good grades in high school. You will find that many of the top executives in the big German and Swiss multinationals do not have a university degree. In Denmark's biggest company Maersk (the world's biggest shipping company), many of their top executives do not have degrees, but have received their shipping education in-house.
I dont know about Europe. I am from Malaysia and used to study & work in the US. To me the US is the same as Asian countries when it comes to graduates. There are just too many of them. There is an oversupply of universities & graduates and many of them produce worthless degrees. Courses like liberal arts, businesses, psychology, etc. They are producing it to the tune of millions and the workforce dont need it. To me, we should just ban all these worthless degrees. Only STEM courses + Finance + Law and maybe some other courses like Economics, Psychology, etc. We can keep. But liberal arts, business courses and so on. Just ban it, it's a waste of time & money. In the US it's even worse than many Asian countries because the fees are crazy2 expensive. Those who graduate with worthless degrees ends up getting paid very little once they work and many had to pay student debt to the tune of hundreds of thousands. U hear Malaysians complaining about paying back government funded student loans that is set at 1% interest rate. In the US it's something like 4-5%. I feel bad for them. I am glad though that the whole university bubble has blown out already. People have realized university degrees are not necessarily a good investment and the enrolment rate has dropped. Some universities have to close shops. Hopefully the fees will go down in the future significantly.
Another reason for all the advanced degrees: military conscription. If you are studying you can defer enlistment, and that means people will stay as students as long as possible to delay their conscription.
Germany and switzerland have good models in one way, yes. But Germany especially really messed up when it comes to creating a "next generation". The german model will have to be changed radically soon. Ofc Asian societies have these problems too, but Germany had resources and surrounding societeis that solved this much better to draw inspiration from, but somehow did not.
@@emilsohn1671 German model is superior. It provides work life balance that's why the average German is happier and less stressed compared to people in East Asia. Asian turns its people into miserable drones and robots. German provides dignity and prosperity
a friend of mine, graduated from a TW university back in 1999 - he is from Malaysia but TW offered free education to overseas students who took the UEC (Unified Exam Cert). He mentioned that part of this oversupply problem is political - DPP's Chen Shui-Bian (ah bian) made an election promise of "every Taiwanese will have a college degree".
This video is about the social costs of the mismatch between supply/demand. A 4 year degree in Taiwan is presumably pretty affordable compared to the US, so it's less of a big deal if the degree isn't utilized. On this topic, Peter Thiel has a lot of interesting things to say on this topic (search keywords "Peter Thiel" and "higher education bubble"). He sees as a world that no longer innovates outside of computer technology, and believes that US society requires (in my words) constant radical innovation otherwise it falls into chaos. I should mention a degree shouldn't be about the credential giving you an advantage other people, but about how those skills and knowledge can be leveraged to produce economic value. There are so many problems in the world that only radical innovation can solve. It's great for higher education to be widely accessible. Imagine how much further we would be if every person living in poverty in eg, Africa/India/Myannmar/etc had an advanced STEM (Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics) degrees and had the right incentives to eg, cure aging for all humanity and hopefully not eg, developing chemical/biological/nuclear weapons.
A degree does not create jobs out of thin air. These issues you mentioned are happening all over the world. In addition, It's more difficult to create jobs than make a teen go to college.
But how valued would a Taiwanese university degree be internationally? Since moving here I have been surprised to many universities there are, and the quality is likely not equally distributed.
There are a lot of universities here, that's true. I can't speak to whether or not the quality of the education is strong. But there is definitely a credential effect where if you graduate from a good reputation university, you're likely to get a good job. Very much like with the US as well.
@@Asianometry My connections are to the Taiwanese top universities (NTU, NTHU, NCU) so I am kind of blinded how it is elsewhere. And as an outsider it is really hard to see how the locals feel.
Old universities were typically more technical. My generation was ingrained with the 'go to university, be a doctor or engineer' Deflation thanks to liberal arts 'knowledge' industry is um.... bellyaching. As my gen would say, "that's a hobby!" :P (and also my gen, "some people get paid well for hobbies!")
The “nominal” wage hikes in America is due to inflation and the government paying workers more to sit at home than the job would pay them. Real wages have still not gone up and since Taiwan doesn’t have both of those factors I don’t think low skill jobs will get real wage hikes.
Not to "dox" Asianometry, he's mentioned he's part of the "Taipei elite" in a previous video talking about the economic divide between the north and the much poorer regions like southern city of Tainan (and the Taiwanese indigenous people in the mountainous eastern countryside). Given his interest in semiconductor fabs presumably he seems to be trained as an electronics engineer. (Though for all I know all Taiwanese people are well versed in the finer points of extreme ultraviolet lithography.) EDIT: beaten to the punch
@@shazmosushi I don't want to doxx Asianometry either but I am extremely curious about his work/educational background - did he mention he's a liberal arts graduate? He seems to know quite a bit about data, economics, and electronics
Not particularly into his background, but I would be interested in talking about Taiwanese industries, as I have an interest in semiconductors as well. I wanted to know where he lived for a chance to have a chat; it seems like he has a more profound understanding of Taiwan than I do, could probably learn a thing or two.
@@SGprooo I'm in grad school and considering writing a paper about semiconductor manufacturing competition, may I ask what your interest in the topic is? I'm always looking for good sources. Let me DM you
I'm late to this video and discussion. Been teaching at a university in Taiwan for two decades. The university I work at (full-time) got rid of one of their masters program and converted it to a dual bachelors degree program (bachelors degree in two separate major areas of study). I asked one of the administrators in that program. He said, the real reason is that a dual bachelors program has become more valuable than a masters degree, because companies don't have to pay as much, and those with only bachelors are willing to work harder in general and less demanding than those with masters degrees. In other words, a masters degree is actually less competitive in the job market overall, unless the field is highly in demand.
I find it to be due to mental laziness, almost robotic approach to life. It's not that kind of laziness when you aren't prepared for an exam. It's a very different kind, laziness of taking responsibility and being proactive. It's very easy to push your kids to get education, just choose the highest paid specialization the child can possibly afford cognitively and financially. Yet, it means making your child a soldier, an NPC, who then needs to be directed and guided by somebody, a general of sorts. And if the generals are also like that? If they are also more comfortable changing nothing, just passing their positions to their own children? Then you end up with stagnation, everyone wants to get hired and be told what to do, nobody wants to really change things. Children expect to be handed careers simply because they memorized the material at school, because they drilled and exercised. But what they really need is hard work on both their side and more importantly - the side of their parents, preparing their children for the actual world out there, not just checking boxes for exams passed. They need responsibility and creativity. Both are very difficult to do.
2:45 Meanwhile that'd be Singapore's current % of students that enter publicly funded universities (which are seen as more reputable than private ones (which often partner with overseas ones too)), because the government here is worried about over-qualifcation (& the rise of the "associate professional" careers mentioned in this video), so university education wasn't expanded as aggressively here. From what I hear diploma & vocational certificate (what we call the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) here) holders here shouldn't find it too difficult in general to get a job, but there can be quite a big difference in salary (~S$1000+/~NT$20k per month) & promotion opportunities between them & degree holders, though I heard this is changing (more so in private companies than the government sector I heard) to give more recognition to work experience too. 8:18 Reminds me that one of my university professors once asked why most post-graduate students in Singapore were foreigners. I guess a reason is because Singaporeans see more limited improvement in career prospects with a post-grad qualification, with most careers I see sufficing with a Bachelor's & those that don't currently mostly concentrated in R&D & academia (& data scientists too more recently)
The video frames the question from what the workers/students can do to put themselves in a position to get a higher wage and with the question of “if everyone has a degree than it is devalued”. So as an educated person, you should advocate for less people to go into higher education? I mean, if you want to maintain a higher wage and quality of life then yes that’s the answer to this question. Whereas to me the goal of every country should be to educate as many people as possible. Your framing here would mean that the first people to learn to read shouldn’t teach others because if everyone knows then you aren’t as valuable to others. Loved the video. Very well made I would push back a little and say if Taiwan’s GDP is increasing yet the average wage isn’t then the gains made in GDP are just being funneled to the tops of this mega corporations.
I think it all boils down to supply and demand. If the degree you are taking is flooded in the market and there are more degrees of that particular subject than jobs requiring such degrees then of course the pay will be low. However if that degree you are holding is in great demand then of course the pay will be greater.
This is the wrong argument. Universal education access could be accompanied by infusion of capital incentives by the government to spur innovation and entrepreneurship. That would allow for the absorption of excess talent. Without these incentives talent will languish. Good things lead to better things if shared.
The problem is that lots of people get the degree without the talent. They now believe they deserve a nice indoor job in an office with air conditioning and a high salary, preferably without too much hard work. There aren't enough of those jobs, especially not for the people who have a degree but not the talent. There isn't anything the government can do to get all of them a nice job. Some of them, yes, but far from all of them.
This, exactly this. Heavily incentivize innovation of each and every kind, not just the lame web app things from Silicon Valley. This would however require a major shift in societal norms and education - instead of rote memory learning and expecting a worker bee/desk job for life, you have to create your own opportunities and work really hard to bring them to fruition. The skills needed are both broad and deep - being a good engineer is nice but will probably only yield iterative work, on which you will compete on the lowest bidder, thus lose out to (for example) China.
A master's degree won't help in most Asian countries. Candidates are better off getting hands on technical training via job programs or acquiring experience in the field. This will likely make them more attractive in these job markets. This is also because some Asian countries don't always hire upper management owing to just merit, but nepotism and access to networks from established socio economic class ties. High skill vocational training is a good idea, but people are hung up on status and choosing poorly from social pressure. Eg. Wanting engineers, doctors or lawyers.
The problem is that universities around the the US, and then the world adopted the Harvard model for every conceivable subject. Traditionally, many trades were just that, trades. You went to work on the most junior rung, and gained education along the way. Journalism, architecture, engineering: all these trades have been shoved into the four year Harvard model along with many others. They are better suited to be learned over a longer period of time with practical experience along the way. That is probably true of most careers, including medicine and law. Liberal Arts education was about learning the classics. You have to major in classics if you want a true liberal arts education today. So most liberal arts educations today mainly teach and advocate for whatever the current political vogue happens to be.
I will add, that certain high skill fields don't care for higher education locally in Asia, etc. If you're an artist in concept art, 3d game production art, etc; you're better off with good experience and a great portfolio of work instead of a CV. It varies with the field.
You sure are putting that liberal arts degree to good use by making these videos, much kudos to you! I’ve always considered moving to Taiwan but the job market over there is kinda yikes for software engineers.
The point of education is increase in productivity If there are more educated people and productive power available, why aren't companies able to increase their output?
Degrees everywhere have been devalued to be honest. We’ve just made higher education accessible and depending on the school the amount of education varies greatly for the same degree. A mechanical engineering course like fluid mechanics from MIT doesn’t compare to a mid tier university in US who offers the same course. A lot of degrees are given out based on competence levels too low to be realistically useful.
Can you do a break down of the numbers, proportional growth and employment prospects of different degrees in Taiwan? I am sure that an electronic engineer will not have any problem getting a high paying job in Taiwan given the demand of semiconductor? Should universities in Taiwan produce more engineers and fewer liberal art graduates?
Is Taiwan the picture of the future of China ? Scale is a big difference. Why not compare Taiwan to Singapore ? Why was the average salary in Singapore much higher than Taiwan ?
Unless it’s healthcare, law, specific engineering fields, degrees are worth less than the paper it’s printed on. To be fair though, you need a degree to apply for (most of) those specialty programs so it’s more of a hoop to jump thru than anything. Interesting to see that this issue is also occurring in China despite how hard it is to get into college unlike in America.
It's not so much devalued as the general decline of schools in Taiwan. They should have kept elite schools elite. I was looking World ranking of colleges and universities and it's quite sad for Taiwan.
The assessment points in world ranking included things like numbers of international students, foreign lectures and number of classes taught in english. I would not put too much weigh on world rank list to determine univ's education quality.
expanding access to education is a good thing, but universities provide diplomas and not so much education assuming that you get trained for 4 or 5 years then live on that forever is the problem
In my opinion I think univiersties should shrunken just to acommodate some higher learning stuff. Highschools should take the roll of educating liberal arts, economics and other academical topics. Training should be a thing companies adopt, or at least the govenment should promote and create training schools for most of the more technological jobs. Most people are only interested in getting a job, and people require a diploma to do so. Furthering the need for college degrees. Things need to change, especially when information is so abundant and free on the internet. If a person wants to dable more in topics not required for jobs, then they should be able to do so voluntarily at their own pace outside of training.
It is not only about over supply of degree holders. The spread of intelligence of every generation is about the same. So pushing more to get degree, does not and cannot change the cohort IQ level.
It of course depends on how you define intelligence and how much of it you account to nature or nurture. Do you really think that a society will not benefit from a better educated populous? Or - a bit more perverse - how would, according to you, a society be better of with a larger share of poorly educated people?
If nothing else Taiwan wages should rise with their baby boomers retirement and need for medical assistance. Blue collar workers though wages will probably rise more.
If wages rise due to falling labor supply it reaches a tipping point where manufacturing moves to other countries. The promise has been increased labor productivity (through automation) will stop this, but I'm not so sure. Just something to keep in mind. Taiwan is very important to the global electronics supply chain with so many products manufactured there. I would hate to see that capacity move to the countries which are not as free, open and democratic as Taiwan.
I disagree about the liberal arts education as it stands. It is heavily influenced by critical theory, standpoint epistemology, post modern philosophy, and is heavily slanted and unreliable in brining anything much of value.
![HIWWHEE | OHM [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OJJLtTLqLag/mqdefault.jpg)
There seems to be a mismatch between what the Taiwanese education system produces, and what the economy needs. For e.g., the Taiwanese govt is heavily promoting a switch to renewable energy, esp. offshore wind. Wind farm developers and wind turbine OEMs need installation and service technicians. Typically in Northern Europe (where most offshore wind is currently) these technicans are drawn from the skilled blue-collar trades (e.g.electricians, toolmakers etc.), who have normally done 3 years of training/apprenticeship and have several years experience. However in Taiwan, such people do not exist in sufficient quantity and quality. Instead the industry is forced to use engineering graduates, who may not have the requisite 'hands-on' experience. I don't know if this is because talented young people in Taiwan do not choose to be skilled tradesmen, or if the vocational training/apprenticeship set-up is not 'fit for purpose' for a modern economy. By way of comparison, 40% of students in Denmark choose the vocational route. Many students who are talented/intelligent choose the vocational route rather than the academic. This is also the case for the rest of Scandinavia and Germany/Netherlands/Switzerland/Austria. For e.g. in Switzerland and Germany only 20% of any age cohort pursue a university education. Many students serve technical/commercial apprenticeships rather than go to university, including those who may have good grades in high school. You will find that many of the top executives in the big German and Swiss multinationals do not have a university degree. In Denmark's biggest company Maersk (the world's biggest shipping company), many of their top executives do not have degrees, but have received their shipping education in-house.
I dont know about Europe. I am from Malaysia and used to study & work in the US. To me the US is the same as Asian countries when it comes to graduates. There are just too many of them. There is an oversupply of universities & graduates and many of them produce worthless degrees. Courses like liberal arts, businesses, psychology, etc. They are producing it to the tune of millions and the workforce dont need it. To me, we should just ban all these worthless degrees. Only STEM courses + Finance + Law and maybe some other courses like Economics, Psychology, etc. We can keep. But liberal arts, business courses and so on. Just ban it, it's a waste of time & money. In the US it's even worse than many Asian countries because the fees are crazy2 expensive. Those who graduate with worthless degrees ends up getting paid very little once they work and many had to pay student debt to the tune of hundreds of thousands. U hear Malaysians complaining about paying back government funded student loans that is set at 1% interest rate. In the US it's something like 4-5%. I feel bad for them. I am glad though that the whole university bubble has blown out already. People have realized university degrees are not necessarily a good investment and the enrolment rate has dropped. Some universities have to close shops. Hopefully the fees will go down in the future significantly.
Another reason for all the advanced degrees: military conscription. If you are studying you can defer enlistment, and that means people will stay as students as long as possible to delay their conscription.
Thankyou for videos like these. You'll eventually receive a lot more attention. I hope commenters are respectful.
Thank you for your kind words. I hope my work helps people better understand the issues Taiwanese people think about on a daily basis.
As a Taiwanese, I really appreciate the solid content and attention to Taiwan's situations and problems reflected in this channel.
they're pretty effing smart in california. I knew taiwanese with perfect SAT scores and went to harvard, but they also come from rich families.
It's pronounced "Ha Fu". :P (inside joke)
Germans do a very good job to stream students in different professional groups and provide social recognition for semi-skilled and skilled trades
German companies actively participate in grooming new workers. Whereas most others countries cried they can't find qualified workers.
Germany and switzerland have good models in one way, yes. But Germany especially really messed up when it comes to creating a "next generation". The german model will have to be changed radically soon. Ofc Asian societies have these problems too, but Germany had resources and surrounding societeis that solved this much better to draw inspiration from, but somehow did not.
@@emilsohn1671 if Germany has problems everyone's f***ed
Guild traditions and supervisory board participation
@@emilsohn1671 German model is superior. It provides work life balance that's why the average German is happier and less stressed compared to people in East Asia.
Asian turns its people into miserable drones and robots. German provides dignity and prosperity
a friend of mine, graduated from a TW university back in 1999 - he is from Malaysia but TW offered free education to overseas students who took the UEC (Unified Exam Cert). He mentioned that part of this oversupply problem is political - DPP's Chen Shui-Bian (ah bian) made an election promise of "every Taiwanese will have a college degree".
friend of mine or friend of ours?
This video is about the social costs of the mismatch between supply/demand. A 4 year degree in Taiwan is presumably pretty affordable compared to the US, so it's less of a big deal if the degree isn't utilized. On this topic, Peter Thiel has a lot of interesting things to say on this topic (search keywords "Peter Thiel" and "higher education bubble"). He sees as a world that no longer innovates outside of computer technology, and believes that US society requires (in my words) constant radical innovation otherwise it falls into chaos.
I should mention a degree shouldn't be about the credential giving you an advantage other people, but about how those skills and knowledge can be leveraged to produce economic value. There are so many problems in the world that only radical innovation can solve. It's great for higher education to be widely accessible. Imagine how much further we would be if every person living in poverty in eg, Africa/India/Myannmar/etc had an advanced STEM (Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics) degrees and had the right incentives to eg, cure aging for all humanity and hopefully not eg, developing chemical/biological/nuclear weapons.
I love your videos. I subscribed to your newsletter
A degree does not create jobs out of thin air. These issues you mentioned are happening all over the world. In addition, It's more difficult to create jobs than make a teen go to college.
But how valued would a Taiwanese university degree be internationally? Since moving here I have been surprised to many universities there are, and the quality is likely not equally distributed.
There are a lot of universities here, that's true. I can't speak to whether or not the quality of the education is strong. But there is definitely a credential effect where if you graduate from a good reputation university, you're likely to get a good job. Very much like with the US as well.
@@Asianometry My connections are to the Taiwanese top universities (NTU, NTHU, NCU) so I am kind of blinded how it is elsewhere. And as an outsider it is really hard to see how the locals feel.
Old universities were typically more technical. My generation was ingrained with the 'go to university, be a doctor or engineer' Deflation thanks to liberal arts 'knowledge' industry is um.... bellyaching. As my gen would say, "that's a hobby!" :P (and also my gen, "some people get paid well for hobbies!")
The “nominal” wage hikes in America is due to inflation and the government paying workers more to sit at home than the job would pay them. Real wages have still not gone up and since Taiwan doesn’t have both of those factors I don’t think low skill jobs will get real wage hikes.
I really like your videos; I think it deserves more attention than the status quo.
Which city do you live in Taiwan?
Thank you for your kind words. I live in Taipei but spend a lot of time in Tainan as well.
Not to "dox" Asianometry, he's mentioned he's part of the "Taipei elite" in a previous video talking about the economic divide between the north and the much poorer regions like southern city of Tainan (and the Taiwanese indigenous people in the mountainous eastern countryside).
Given his interest in semiconductor fabs presumably he seems to be trained as an electronics engineer. (Though for all I know all Taiwanese people are well versed in the finer points of extreme ultraviolet lithography.)
EDIT: beaten to the punch
@@shazmosushi I don't want to doxx Asianometry either but I am extremely curious about his work/educational background - did he mention he's a liberal arts graduate? He seems to know quite a bit about data, economics, and electronics
Not particularly into his background, but I would be interested in talking about Taiwanese industries, as I have an interest in semiconductors as well.
I wanted to know where he lived for a chance to have a chat; it seems like he has a more profound understanding of Taiwan than I do, could probably learn a thing or two.
@@SGprooo I'm in grad school and considering writing a paper about semiconductor manufacturing competition, may I ask what your interest in the topic is? I'm always looking for good sources. Let me DM you
I'm late to this video and discussion. Been teaching at a university in Taiwan for two decades. The university I work at (full-time) got rid of one of their masters program and converted it to a dual bachelors degree program (bachelors degree in two separate major areas of study). I asked one of the administrators in that program. He said, the real reason is that a dual bachelors program has become more valuable than a masters degree, because companies don't have to pay as much, and those with only bachelors are willing to work harder in general and less demanding than those with masters degrees. In other words, a masters degree is actually less competitive in the job market overall, unless the field is highly in demand.
I find it to be due to mental laziness, almost robotic approach to life.
It's not that kind of laziness when you aren't prepared for an exam.
It's a very different kind, laziness of taking responsibility and being proactive.
It's very easy to push your kids to get education, just choose the highest paid specialization the child can possibly afford cognitively and financially. Yet, it means making your child a soldier, an NPC, who then needs to be directed and guided by somebody, a general of sorts.
And if the generals are also like that? If they are also more comfortable changing nothing, just passing their positions to their own children? Then you end up with stagnation, everyone wants to get hired and be told what to do, nobody wants to really change things.
Children expect to be handed careers simply because they memorized the material at school, because they drilled and exercised.
But what they really need is hard work on both their side and more importantly - the side of their parents, preparing their children for the actual world out there, not just checking boxes for exams passed. They need responsibility and creativity. Both are very difficult to do.
2:45 Meanwhile that'd be Singapore's current % of students that enter publicly funded universities (which are seen as more reputable than private ones (which often partner with overseas ones too)), because the government here is worried about over-qualifcation (& the rise of the "associate professional" careers mentioned in this video), so university education wasn't expanded as aggressively here. From what I hear diploma & vocational certificate (what we call the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) here) holders here shouldn't find it too difficult in general to get a job, but there can be quite a big difference in salary (~S$1000+/~NT$20k per month) & promotion opportunities between them & degree holders, though I heard this is changing (more so in private companies than the government sector I heard) to give more recognition to work experience too.
8:18 Reminds me that one of my university professors once asked why most post-graduate students in Singapore were foreigners. I guess a reason is because Singaporeans see more limited improvement in career prospects with a post-grad qualification, with most careers I see sufficing with a Bachelor's & those that don't currently mostly concentrated in R&D & academia (& data scientists too more recently)
thanks DPP.
The video frames the question from what the workers/students can do to put themselves in a position to get a higher wage and with the question of “if everyone has a degree than it is devalued”. So as an educated person, you should advocate for less people to go into higher education? I mean, if you want to maintain a higher wage and quality of life then yes that’s the answer to this question. Whereas to me the goal of every country should be to educate as many people as possible. Your framing here would mean that the first people to learn to read shouldn’t teach others because if everyone knows then you aren’t as valuable to others. Loved the video. Very well made
I would push back a little and say if Taiwan’s GDP is increasing yet the average wage isn’t then the gains made in GDP are just being funneled to the tops of this mega corporations.
I think it all boils down to supply and demand. If the degree you are taking is flooded in the market and there are more degrees of that particular subject than jobs requiring such degrees then of course the pay will be low. However if that degree you are holding is in great demand then of course the pay will be greater.
This is the wrong argument. Universal education access could be accompanied by infusion of capital incentives by the government to spur innovation and entrepreneurship. That would allow for the absorption of excess talent. Without these incentives talent will languish. Good things lead to better things if shared.
The problem is that lots of people get the degree without the talent. They now believe they deserve a nice indoor job in an office with air conditioning and a high salary, preferably without too much hard work. There aren't enough of those jobs, especially not for the people who have a degree but not the talent. There isn't anything the government can do to get all of them a nice job. Some of them, yes, but far from all of them.
This, exactly this. Heavily incentivize innovation of each and every kind, not just the lame web app things from Silicon Valley. This would however require a major shift in societal norms and education - instead of rote memory learning and expecting a worker bee/desk job for life, you have to create your own opportunities and work really hard to bring them to fruition. The skills needed are both broad and deep - being a good engineer is nice but will probably only yield iterative work, on which you will compete on the lowest bidder, thus lose out to (for example) China.
Very good analysis, thank you.
It is really hard for universities and colleges to adjust the supply of graduates according to the current economic climate.
A master's degree won't help in most Asian countries.
Candidates are better off getting hands on technical training via job programs or acquiring experience in the field. This will likely make them more attractive in these job markets.
This is also because some Asian countries don't always hire upper management owing to just merit, but nepotism and access to networks from established socio economic class ties.
High skill vocational training is a good idea, but people are hung up on status and choosing poorly from social pressure. Eg. Wanting engineers, doctors or lawyers.
Shouldn't the companies look for workers post their need instead having students guessing where to find jobs when they graduate.
The problem is that universities around the the US, and then the world adopted the Harvard model for every conceivable subject. Traditionally, many trades were just that, trades. You went to work on the most junior rung, and gained education along the way. Journalism, architecture, engineering: all these trades have been shoved into the four year Harvard model along with many others. They are better suited to be learned over a longer period of time with practical experience along the way. That is probably true of most careers, including medicine and law. Liberal Arts education was about learning the classics. You have to major in classics if you want a true liberal arts education today. So most liberal arts educations today mainly teach and advocate for whatever the current political vogue happens to be.
I will add, that certain high skill fields don't care for higher education locally in Asia, etc.
If you're an artist in concept art, 3d game production art, etc; you're better off with good experience and a great portfolio of work instead of a CV. It varies with the field.
You sure are putting that liberal arts degree to good use by making these videos, much kudos to you!
I’ve always considered moving to Taiwan but the job market over there is kinda yikes for software engineers.
Why? Do they have too many software engineers?
5:16 Interesting!
It sounds like it's easy to get a bad job,
But it's hard to get a good job
The point of education is increase in productivity
If there are more educated people and productive power available, why aren't companies able to increase their output?
Degrees everywhere have been devalued to be honest. We’ve just made higher education accessible and depending on the school the amount of education varies greatly for the same degree. A mechanical engineering course like fluid mechanics from MIT doesn’t compare to a mid tier university in US who offers the same course. A lot of degrees are given out based on competence levels too low to be realistically useful.
How many engineers do you need? what about phylosophers? architects? etc. compared to "builders" and other doers?
Can you do a break down of the numbers, proportional growth and employment prospects of different degrees in Taiwan? I am sure that an electronic engineer will not have any problem getting a high paying job in Taiwan given the demand of semiconductor? Should universities in Taiwan produce more engineers and fewer liberal art graduates?
But what if its a declining population like japan? Percentage of college entries wont matter cuz they will still lack workers
So if you wanna study in a Taiwanese university around next year, is it a bad idea?
Discount. I should probably enroll. You do want me to go back to school.
Is Taiwan the picture of the future of China ? Scale is a big difference. Why not compare Taiwan to Singapore ? Why was the average salary in Singapore much higher than Taiwan ?
Most of Taiwan university graduate are equivalent of High school graduate in other developed country .
2:28 TAIWAAAN NUMBER ONNNE!!!!
Why doesn't Taiwan seek to develop its services sector instead?
Where is Philippines!
Unless it’s healthcare, law, specific engineering fields, degrees are worth less than the paper it’s printed on. To be fair though, you need a degree to apply for (most of) those specialty programs so it’s more of a hoop to jump thru than anything. Interesting to see that this issue is also occurring in China despite how hard it is to get into college unlike in America.
That's very simplistic. You also need degrees for law, finance and accounting. The only useless are humanities degrees
It's not so much devalued as the general decline of schools in Taiwan. They should have kept elite schools elite. I was looking World ranking of colleges and universities and it's quite sad for Taiwan.
The assessment points in world ranking included things like numbers of international students, foreign lectures and number of classes taught in english. I would not put too much weigh on world rank list to determine univ's education quality.
expanding access to education is a good thing, but universities provide diplomas and not so much education
assuming that you get trained for 4 or 5 years then live on that forever is the problem
Taiwan needs more in the military. Those in the CCP want Taiwan. Body count is not a problem.
In my opinion I think univiersties should shrunken just to acommodate some higher learning stuff. Highschools should take the roll of educating liberal arts, economics and other academical topics. Training should be a thing companies adopt, or at least the govenment should promote and create training schools for most of the more technological jobs. Most people are only interested in getting a job, and people require a diploma to do so. Furthering the need for college degrees. Things need to change, especially when information is so abundant and free on the internet. If a person wants to dable more in topics not required for jobs, then they should be able to do so voluntarily at their own pace outside of training.
Nobody needs a liberal arts degree.
It is not only about over supply of degree holders. The spread of intelligence of every generation is about the same. So pushing more to get degree, does not and cannot change the cohort IQ level.
It of course depends on how you define intelligence and how much of it you account to nature or nurture. Do you really think that a society will not benefit from a better educated populous? Or - a bit more perverse - how would, according to you, a society be better of with a larger share of poorly educated people?
If nothing else Taiwan wages should rise with their baby boomers retirement and need for medical assistance. Blue collar workers though wages will probably rise more.
If wages rise due to falling labor supply it reaches a tipping point where manufacturing moves to other countries. The promise has been increased labor productivity (through automation) will stop this, but I'm not so sure.
Just something to keep in mind.
Taiwan is very important to the global electronics supply chain with so many products manufactured there. I would hate to see that capacity move to the countries which are not as free, open and democratic as Taiwan.
@@shazmosushi taiwan just import wokers from s.e. asia and the chinese mainland.
I disagree about the liberal arts education as it stands. It is heavily influenced by critical theory, standpoint epistemology, post modern philosophy, and is heavily slanted and unreliable in brining anything much of value.
I disagree, it brings value to the shareholders of the investment companies running the universities.