higher education, but intentionally misspelled and pronounced in a wry, ironic manner so as to imply the practical irrelevance of, misprioritization towards, and / or conformity in, obtaining the degree(s) in question.
You use this word when:
1. The degree choice itself is impractical (
gender studies, liberal arts, etc).
2. The decision to get a degree at all is impractical and questionable for the person in question (overkill or not needed for the chosen field,
unaffordable student loans, bad life timing, etc).
3. You want to subtly hint that the person in question is not intelligent enough for the real world anyway and so higher education would not improve their chances in life, which ties back to #2.
4. You want to not-so-sutbly mock the conformist nature of obtaining a degree for the sake of obtaining a degree, since degrees are now commonplace and
everyone and their dog now has one, so they are no longer valuable or exceptional to have aside from ticking a resume box for the 'system'.
Example:
So, you're telling me that instead of having a family in your twenties and avoiding the rat-race until you can truly focus on it long-term (when your kids are grown in your
forties), you'll get your edumacation so as to pursue your career for corporations that only view you by
the profit margins you can make them, and wait until the wall hits in your thirties to realise that
climbing the corporate ladder alone is not a particularly fulfilling life path. Got it.