Photo: Mauricio Mascaro/Pexels
People with college degrees aren’t better than everyone else, writes Charles Cooke on National Review. We push students to get “paper degrees” and look down on people who succeed without one.
Today, college has become our go-to yardstick for minimal competence. Take a look at almost any job listing for almost any desk job in any city, and you will see “college degree” listed as an essential requirement. The argument in favor of this arrangement is that if a candidate can demonstrate that he has completed such a degree, he can be assumed to be both relatively smart and capable of sticking with things to their end. Which, in some cases, is of course true. But it is telling that none of the other experiences that demonstrate capacity and tenacity tend to make an appearance in the listings. Know what else demonstrates an ability to stick things out? Military service. Running a small business. Working at a charity. Training as a plumber. Working on a farm. Learning to weld. Keeping another job for a long period of time.
We need cheaper, faster ways for young people to prove to employers they’re worth a try.
The purpose of high school is to prepare young people for capable adulthood, writes Ramesh Ponnuru. It’s not about college.