The point of education.

On another part of the friends list the question was asked that when you can leave school at 16, work hard and get a high flying job, why bother?. As part of the meandering comment thread later on comment was made on the relative worth of degrees and who exactly is funding them. Luckily last week the Guardian featured the results of a Universities UK study on the impact of higher education on the UK economy:
higher education "worth more than pills and planes"
The full report
I was fascinated by the employment statistics. Who do you think works at universities?
( Poll - what do universities *do* all day? )