Katie59
Education for its own sake is fine if you can afford it, take a degree course at 60 that is not related to any employment ambitions.
At 18 yrs a qualification related to employment is highly desirable, it enables you to pay the rent and buy food, the alternative is sponging off a parent or the state.
A lot of degrees teach you how to analyse, research, think critically, question the status quo etc and those are greatly valuable skills in many areas.
However much of what you learn on the job is also very important including judgment and people and management skills.
There are so many different ways to learn and develop within the Labour Market. And there are so many different types of people entering the Labour Market.
Making entry to third level the norm, cutting off many other avenues to jobs and then changing the nature of universities to make up for that is skewed and very expensive thinking.