---
title: "Productivity and Human Capital in Higher Education"
url: https://mainstreetjournal.ca/productivity-and-human-capital-in-higher-education/
type: post
date: 2025-01-10
modified: 2025-07-14
markdown_url: https://mainstreetjournal.ca/productivity-and-human-capital-in-higher-education.md
author: "Matt"
---

# Productivity and Human Capital in Higher Education

The first European universities emerged at the beginning of the High Middle Ages, offering courses in the liberal arts, and advanced professional training in theology, law, and medicine.

A Medieval scholar might have described the study of the liberal arts as a necessary precursor to what academics now call ‘critical thinking’. But, it could be argued that then – as now – that a university education was the best way to get a good job.

And we might consider critical thinking as merely another name for ‘indoctrination’. In fact, the most advanced university degrees – doctorates – share the same origins as the word ‘indoctrination’.

In this presentation we’ll examine the reasons why we go to university, and whether – as the higher education industry claims – a college actually increases what some people call ‘human capital’ – and thereby productivity.

Productivity and Human Capital in Higher Education - 

**WATCH FULL VIDEO HERE:**

https://youtu.be/9WiLVE3bT_M?si=InXUGOv4E2av4_-c