I wonder what you think the role of academia in modern society should be.
It depends on what the students want to learn. There are people who want to be scientists, people who want to be teachers, there are also people who want to make money and run a business.
Academia is a place where people can get an in-depth knowledge of the thing(s) they’re interested in learning to help prepare them to be successful in the outside world.
It is a valid and money-making industry to be a profitable YouTuber. It takes planning, strategy, project management, financing, accounting, and various other people skills. Just because it’s YouTube, and just because you may not take it seriously, makes it no less of a viable and marketable skill that could be taught to other people.
Now it’s your turn: what is your idea of the role of academia in modern society?
Not the other guy but IMO it’s pretty simple. Academia is for the pursuit of knowledge, you learn and the you contribute. That may coincide with making money and running a business but it does not have to. If you want to make money and run a business that’s what vocational studies should be, you learn a trade for the purpose of “being successful in the outside world”. The issue with society today is that we’ve come to glorify higher education and view vocations as some kind of negative. Academia in a modern society should stay focused on the pursuit of knowledge not on the pursuit of churning out degrees to make certain jobs look more legitimate than other jobs. Pursuit of money and running a business should be territory of vocational schools.
There is no pursuit of knowledge in becoming a Youtuber or a Twitch streamer, so it should be taught as a vocation and not as a part of academia.