What do you think about higher education, is it necessary these days?

Often, our success at work depends on solid communication skills, whether it be oral or written. And, in my opinion, we need colledge for impoving our communication abilities. With an ever changing global society, communication abilities can help compete in the changing career landscape, digital advancements, and increasingly difficult competition at the workplace.

In my opinion, it depends. There are a lot of people thinking person without higher education can gain nothing in his life. But it actually depends on definition of the success. So, there’re so many areas people can be successful in, and few from them need higher education. If we’re talking about career in IT, it also depends. Because many tech companies require having higher education from candidates applying for managing positions. But to build a career as an engineer, for instance, higher education is not required. Also, agree with @ahmet_hojamyradov about quality of the education: some universities prevent graduating unqualified specialists, some don’t. Rating of the university matters. In summary, higher education can be helpful for some people as well as it can be useless for other.

As someone who's been a long-time advocate for self-education but decided to go back to university at age 28, I think the answer is quite nuanced. Some basics need to be covered: good communication, project management, learning how to learn, etc. Which, ironically, are often not covered that well in traditional higher education, but are still touched upon through group projects and such. Once the basics are covered, there are many kinds of roles where you'll learn much better on your own and on the job than you would by going to university. This is especially true of fast-changing areas like web development and online marketing. I think anyone who's motivated can do these jobs very well by using a combination of online courses and having a good manager that can provide mentorship. But there are some kinds of jobs where you still do need formal tutoring and access to specific resources through higher education. That includes any kind of job that relates to people's health and safety, such as medical staff, but also jobs where you need to be trained with specialist equipment that you may not have available at home. That's why I went back to school to study neuroscience – no way I could afford an MRI scanner and put it in my living room! So, it depends on the kind of role you're looking at. In many cases, higher education is not only unnecessary, but is a bad choice when you consider the opportunity costs.

We are definitely in a skill based economy, so a degree makes sense only for a few particular professions like law, medicine etc. So by higher education if you mean degree then they are not as essential as before. But definitely upskilling has to be given very high priority.

nothing is necessary these days

I think there's a great need for vocational (job specific) training. If you go to college you gain knowledge, theory and critical thinking skills. Vocation training provides a bit of that, but instead focuses on practical, actionable skill acquisition which can get you a job in a few months. And often times these jobs pay more than traditional careers you might get if you did complete college. Excluding of course things like medicine, law, aerospace engineering, etc :)

I think the extra years after high school allows young people to really figure out what they want to do without the pressure that comes from regular employment. Despite that, my first job was really where I developed and built the foundational skills that I use today, not higher education.

For some jobs, higher education is a must (medicine, science, etc.). I know many people that have multiple degrees and the ones who decided not to have any. Despite the fact that the latter do not have higher education, they have good positions and know their work well (mostly in IT). What is important for the employer is that you have a sufficient level of knowledge, are ready to learn, and know how to work with people and tight deadlines. Universities and institutes give such practical skills in the course of study. And people who choose to study on their own need to be disciplined, which is challenging. I think getting a quality higher education is a necessary step for most of us. But it's not easy to find quality education in the CIS, unfortunately :)

Higher education is crucial these days. It is the time in which I develop my critical thinking skills and broaden my horizons.

It really depends on your field. If you are going into social media or sw programming, it is not necessary, but nice to have. If you want to become a physician or mechanical engineer, it's necessary.