Questions Regarding 7e EDU

[xiyouji]

While discussing character generation with some fellow players, a question came up to us and we had very different opinions on this topic, so I guess it would be very helpful to see if there is a "correct" answer to this question:

Does professional training (eg. acting school, athletic training, culinary school, apprenticeship under the mentoring of craftsmen) count as Education? Is it appropriate for academically less educated (by this I mean without higher educational degree , or in some historical settings never been to schools at all) characters to have high EDU (high as 80 or 90) if they have received equivalent time of professional training? Or is it only reflected by the corresponding Skill?

I guessed that since EDU can get improvement checks as the character grows older, it does not solely represent the highest academic degree the character received (no one automatically gets a bachelors degree by living some decades longer).

The rule book says "Education is a measure of the formal and factual knowledge possessed by the investigator, as well as indicating the time the investigator has spent in full-time education.", so I think I might need some specification.

[littlewitchmaus]

when i've been keeper, i generally allow for professional experience to be factored into edu (but with the caveat that a character rolling against it for a certain thing has to make sense with the character's background.)

[AlHazred]

I consider the EDU stat less "how formal is your education," and more "how much information that you've been exposed to do you retain". In real life, my memory is horrible, absolutely terrible. Legendarily bad among my friends and family. I have a college degree and have read many books, but don't rate my personal EDU higher than, say, 14 or so. On the other hand, look at someone like comedian Danny Kaye. He had no formal training in any field, but he was an expert at many diverse hobbies: he taught himself Chinese and Italian cooking well enough to teach classes in the 70s, and couldn't read music but learned to imitate conducting well enough that he regularly conducted world-famous orchestras in the 60s and 70s. He had a very high EDU.