In most places, unless it is skilled manual trades, you cant even get an interview without the “College Degree” box checked.
Young folks are stuck between a built in system of “credentialled” folks as gate keepers vs piss poor schools offering nothing but a paper chase.
Not too long ago, diagramming sentences was grade school and Algebra was middle school. Now, many “studies” college grads can’t write nor perform anything higher than addition and subtraction.
Most teachers are low-performing babysitters with little skill themselves.
Things have to change.
I’d not want to hire someone without the “college degree” box checked.
Yes, that isn’t sufficient - but it is necessary.
In an interview I don’t have time to evaluate all the topics I expect competence in. That checkbox assures high likelihood the candidate does have that knowledge. I’ve worked with non-degreed engineers, and while competent they did have gaping holes that would have been filled in a degree program.
That checkbox also assures that a candidate can take on a years-long project which requires satisfaction of a broad range of requirements to the approval of a large number of experts. Having been a college prof, I saw how many were filtered out by this process, unable or unwilling (!) to do the work.
Yes, many who graduate are not sufficiently competent (being a quasi-manager, I’m stunned by the lack of competency in candidates with Masters’ degrees) ... but if the degreed are that bad, how much worse those who couldn’t even manage to complete a degree in anything?
The problem dictates the changes which we are experiencing even now i.e. the terminal decadence of the culture and the Republic. We are destined to make the Roman transition to Empire, either as a Caesar or a Lenin seizes control and militarizes society or as it all falls apart and becomes a province of a more masculine and expanding empire such as Islam or China.
“Not too long ago, diagramming sentences was grade school and Algebra was middle school. Now, many “studies” college grads can’t write nor perform anything higher than addition and subtraction.”
I finished high school in 1962 and entered the Navy and completed a 38 week Navy electronics school. I have no other formal education other than short company paid training schools. I recently took an online test to “determine my level of education”. Imagine my surprise when at the end of the test I was told that my education level is “post doctoral”. Now I don’t put a lot of stock in that test but I am certain of one thing. There definitely are many people in the community around me who have multiple college degrees but could not pass my high school finals if their lives depended on it.