In contrast to many comments, I had a great time studying. Sure, the staff didn't have great teaching skills (classical prof with an unruly hairdo reading from the syllabus in a large hall), but after the first year, classes became smaller and teaching was --while not passionate-- certainly inspired in many cases. It was a period in which students could still pick an academic topic and write a (small) thesis for graduation, or do some internship and write a report about that. I had a supervisor who was into some of the newer stuff and gave me practically free reign with regular feedback.

That was in 80s. I stuck around, changed faculty (AI, cogsci, neuro), and saw university change. It became very financially oriented. The number of students kept rising, norms kept dropping (2nd year student asking: what does this symbol √ mean?), students participating in real research became rarer and rarer, even PhDs shifted towards more and more teaching, and 20 years later, the most influential member of a university's board was the one doing real estate, and an academic career was based on the amount of funding obtained.

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chamomeal 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Tangential, but I also loved studying and learned way more from textbooks than I ever did from class/lectures. I even went to a small school where there might only be 10 people in the class (the physics department was especially teensy), and I still just could absolutely never pay attention in class with any success.

When exams were coming up, I would start skipping class just to read textbooks and work through practice problems, and it was a lifesaver!! The professors were great for getting me unstuck with a concept, but 90% of the time I just needed to be studying alone

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skeeter2020 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I loved my time at a big Canadian uni in the 90's and smaller one in early 2000's. Grad school a few years later was kind of disappointing; I thought everyone would be smarter. Still some good profs and the best students were awesome and inspiring, but I watched a shift towards distance education & foreign students that meant way more adminstrators and way less of the environment that made uni so great. I suspect it's even worse in the US

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matheusmoreira 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> It became very financially oriented.

> The number of students kept rising, norms kept dropping

All due to the student loans scam.

https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-first-myth...

https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-second-myt...

https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/03/myth-3-college...

https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-last-myth....

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skeeter2020 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

not in Canada. Funding & allowed price increases has mostly been capped for a very long time at many schools/programs, so they've had to find new revenue streams. This is mostly foreign students and continuing education / executive programs, or "professional" degrees (MBA, law, medicine). None of these moves encourages deeper academic research.

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tgv 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In the US perhaps, but it happened in Western Europe too, even where there weren't student loans. Simplistic explanation: the right wing parties were in favor of "austerity" measures, i.e. budget cuts, and the left-wing ones of getting as many people through college as possible. Unfortunately, both got what they wished for.

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orwin 7 hours ago | parent [-]

On this particular issue, i think all parties that reach power want the same thing: more educated people, cheaper (because let's be honest, a "left-wing" party in Europe that conquer power in Europe is at most a "third way"-type party, sometime with a green tint), and are all equally at fault for the situation.

The meaningfull difference between right-wing and left-wing parties is how the University should be organized, with right-wing party pushing for centralized, more powerful unis that can reach international "power rankings", and left-wing parties usually push for a decentralization (that's how you get university branches in small towns usually). Also most right-wing/third way parties seems to want the admin staff to have power over the education staff, that there's that shift too (the exact same stuff is happening in hospitals).

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aleph_minus_one 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> On this particular issue, i think all parties that reach power want the same thing: more educated people

I don't think so: educated people are much harder to control that uneducated masses.

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fl0id 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

LOL no. Here right wingers just want to defund higher ed and control what they do. None of which will help with quality of output. (and those rankings are largely useless anyway) they don’t want more educated ppl, because they blame education for what they see wrong with society and would undermine their base. (Like how there’s claims that unis make people leftist or similar )

	▲	orwin 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, but it's recent, and it's something europe imported from the US.

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renewiltord 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, these organizations adapt to taking government money. The ideal flow for universities:

1. Set tuition high

2. Advocate for student loan systems

3. Advocate for loan forgiveness

In this way, universities can simply allocate government money to themselves. That's why "everyone must be educated" campaigns always argue for government loan forgiveness and full tuition coverage.

Students are a device to acquire money from the government. No more.