Most of you here assume the "Human Capital" model (i.e. you pay to acquire skills), but that entirely misses the actual point of a college degree! 2001 Nobel Prize went for demonstrating that college is basically a quarter million dollar IQ and Marshmallow Test. It's a filtering mechanism that allows employers to tell who is smart and conscientious enough to be productive at work.

Offering education to more and more people via reduced cost mass online courses, lowering entry requirements or similar approaches will only erode the signalling value of a degree further.

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chillycharlie 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Those degrees also don't lead to the jobs they want. My former boss would hire people with degrees in, to do basic admin tasks. I quit because a they hired a guy to be my manager, with a lawyer degree and paid him $20k more than me, to do the same job. But he would spend the whole day on his phone. I'm in a new job, hiring people, and I'm not looking at degrees when it's for a dispatch role.

	▲	crossbody 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's the sad outcome of everyone getting _some_ degree in recent years. Something like 50 years ago 10% had college degree, now it's close to 50%. Meanwhile population IQ score stayed rather stable while willingness to work hard declined. So of course the quality of employees with degrees has dropped and hence the degree is no longer a good signal to employers