In a recent LinkedIn post, Jenny George, Dean of the Melbourne Business School, made a powerful observation about the purpose of higher education and the pressures often placed on universities by government and business.
She argued that universities should not cram degrees with “job-ready” content that students can easily pick up once in the workforce. Instead, she said, undergraduate years should be devoted to building the kind of deep, critical thinking that lasts a lifetime.
Her quote: “The real waste is cramming university time with content they could absorb naturally once they start work. Or to concentrate undergraduate subjects on business topics that are better absorbed once people have a bit of job experience under their belts. Those undergraduate years should be for mastering the deep, complex thinking that will carry graduates through decades… The University of Melbourne’s focus on breadth and scholarship in undergraduate degrees, its focus on expanding the core thinking capabilities of students, is fantastic.”
Her words resonate strongly with me. When I’ve been involved in developing new programs or redesigning existing ones, I’ve always believed that the primary goal should be to nurture those durable thinking capabilities. At the same time, I’d add that this should not come entirely at the expense of skills that help graduates transition smoothly into the workforce. After all, students want—and need—both: to be society-ready and job-ready.
Melbourne Business School is a strong example of this balance. Its graduates consistently achieve excellent employment outcomes while also being equipped with the intellectual breadth and leadership capabilities to thrive across industries and over the long term.
The broader dilemma for higher education is that not all programs manage to strike this balance. Some fields of study—without naming names—continue to deliver weak employment outcomes. If large numbers of graduates are struggling to secure work even tangentially related to their field, then surely it is time for a serious review of the purpose and structure of those programs.
This is particularly important when we consider international students. The data is clear: they overwhelmingly gravitate towards programs with direct career pathways—IT, Nursing, Business, and Engineering. Their enrolment choices offer one of the clearest signals of where the jobs are, and policymakers should take note. Funding decisions and program development ought to reflect not only academic ideals but also career realities.
None of this diminishes the role of universities as places to explore, to think deeply, and to build the intellectual foundation for life. But universities also have a responsibility to their graduates. Melbourne Business School demonstrates that it is possible to combine both futures: rigorous intellectual formation and outstanding job readiness. That should be the aspiration across the sector.
And, truth be told, if I ever went “back to school” in Australia, it would be at MBS. Not for job skills alone—but because MBS has proven time and again that job readiness can be the foundation, not the trade-off, for everything else.
