I think it would be a grand idea if people could just take the ‘certification tests’ (i.e. the bar) without having to go to college. The purpose of the test is to verify a certain level of knowledge. If an individual can attain that without spending the dollars for college, why not?
A lot of jobs used to hire people based on IQ tests. If you seem like a smart person, they figure they can train you. But then people started noticed that ... ah ... certain groups weren't doing doing so well on the ol' IQ tests. So that became verbotten. After that, the idea became "If you're smart enough to get a college degree, we figure we can train you.
College is a very, very expensive IQ test. (And the old IQ tests were better.)
People like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Jackson would not be able to practice law due to current rules. Architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Daniel Burnham would be stuck in draftmen’s jobs. It is difficult to see how that would make the world a better place.
Some states allow persons who didn’t get a degree from law school to take the bar, I believe. California is one of them, unless I’m mistaken. That’s one of the reasons why the pass rate is so low.
>>I think it would be a grand idea if people could just take the ‘certification tests’ (i.e. the bar) without having to go to college.<<
Nobody would pass the bar without going to law school. The multi-state itself not only requires some substantive knowledge, it also requires a great deal of practice and study for one of the hardest multiple choice tests there is.