That education is increasingly becoming irrelevant because employers now place a great deal of emphasis on job skills and relevant work experience. Most big companies require their employees to undergo internal training programs. It used to be that education was used as a passport to gain interview opportunities and for prospective employers to filter candidates. Nowadays, these universities have bloated admin departments and offer a lot of garbage courses like gender studies, political science etc. You said politics notwithstanding but politics has now been mixed with education in most of these universities, at least the ones in North America. Besides, how in the world would you trust an institution which promotes nazi propaganda?
I interview people for my employer. I personally have not seen any significant number of non degree holders to get a job. Even in big picture offical stats, the same is reflected :
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/unemployment-rates-for-persons-25-years-and-older-by-educational-attainment.htm
Noteworthy, during leaner periods, non degree holders do much much worse.
Politics has always been a part of college life, true. I mean colleges in USA were breeding grounds for political movements alright (vietnam war opposition), BUT the motivation for immigrants coming to study in foreign universities has always been skills, jobs and chance to immigrate. On that end nothing beats western universities.
Even the best non-western universities like NTU or NUS or TokyoU do not offer same opportunities that even non-top universities in west offer -- likes of USC, ASU, VTech, UCSB, UBC etc.
On politics... well... let me put it in this way: Canada and US have been established on lands stolen and people genocided to make literal "living room" for europeans. To this day the hate and neglect for First Nations is so great in these countries that they do not even build roads to their "reserves" so that these people can not vote enough. Yes, its that bad. Even basic token things are not done. Things like changing the name of the law in the constitution. It still calls the laws dealing with them as "Indian Act". Law still calls them as "Indians". Think about it, its like calling blacks "N-word" in law.
Give all of this, may I ask, what are you doing seeking or obtained immigration to such countries? If you so deeply care about morals that is. How can you bring yourself to trust these countries in the first place to reside here? Do remember, these countries have also imprisoned Japanese immigrants back in World War 2 for no other offense other than their ethnicities. Do you still feel comfortable to immigrate here? Compared to that, western colleges/universities are total saints.
