There re some areas where you must have a degree.
Really hard to walk into a science lab and say “hey, I want to be a material scientist or a hospital and go, I always liked cutting stuff up, think I could handle orthopedic surgery”.
"...But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night."
The doctor? Sure I’ll buy that.
Materials science? You apparently would be surprised what can be learned without a “relevant” degree. sunkenciv’s ping list plus the chemistry from high school has served me quite well. … And the earnest lab work from my first chemistry class for learning procedures and documentation.
Most of the work done in the U.S. today,( not so long ago) did **not** require a university degree and was routinely done by those who merely possessed a solid 8th grade education, ambition, and native intelligence. My parents ( born 1913) and grandmother ( born 1894) would find it laughable that the check-in person at the Marriott now needs to be college educated.
Charles Murray is right! With the amount of information now available through the Internet ( much of it free and more soon coming), what is now needed are certifiable qualifying exams. It is completely possible, with today's technology to reduce the time and cost of education we simply need a means to prove to employers and others that skills have been mastered.
Really hard to walk into a science lab and say “hey, I want to be a material scientist or a hospital and go, I always liked cutting stuff up, think I could handle orthopedic surgery”.
Much of the information learned in the sciences and even in medicine does NOT require formal university or classroom attendance. The cost and time of mastering much of the foundational knowledge needed could be reduced by applying Charles Murray's suggestion of certifiable qualifying exams. Of course the mentoring needed to master laboratory skills, surgery and other treatment of patients would continue to require personal mentoring. I **know** because I have personal experience in this area.
Two examples:
1) My father, one of the highest ranked and paid engineers for his company was trained on the job, though selected night courses at the local college, and through classes taught at the company by local professors. My father was the directing engineer for his company's part in the NASA space program during the 1960s.
2) The brother-in-law of my brother's sister became one of the highest ranked executives of one of the world's largest retail chains. His formal education? Answer: High school diploma. He was born in the late 1930s. Is running one of the world's largest retail chains and catalog companies any more complex today than it was from the early 1960s to mid-1990s? Nope! I don't think so.