Alternatives To A College Degree

A College Education (esp 4-years full-time) is too expensive in time and money to require people to go through just as a condition of Employment (Making A Living). More employers should recognize, and more students should consider, other forms of Signalling.

For Fractally Generative Pattern Language.

Context

Forces

  • A college costs a lot of money to operate.
  • Taxpayers are less interested in subsidizing a College Degree for everyone.
  • Student Loans are burdensome.
  • Most students go to college to increase their Employability, not to develop their minds.
  • Many colleges are low-quality, and have minimal effect on Employability. But students/parents are desperate for a leg up, and so settle for where they can get in. The College Scorecard is late and too soft.
  • Many students have family obligations that keep them from studying full-time, which means (a) they take many more years to get the degree, or (b) they give up without actually getting the degree (but still having lots of debt).
  • There is continued UnEmployment and UnderEmployment, meaning the Employers/Capital have more power, allowing them to "raise their hiring standards", even pointlessly.
  • Many employers are wary of giving candidates Intelligence Tests and other test ever since Griggs vs. Duke Power. Which increases their dependence on pre-existing Credentials.
    • Bryan Caplan disputes the size of the Supreme Court effect. The more I read about this topic, though, the more legal IQ-based hiring seems to be... When asked, only 16% of U.S. employers who don’t test cognitive ability cite “legal concerns.” The leading reason they don’t hire based on IQ is that they doubt the usefulness of the tests.
  • K-12 School Reform is hard because core use-case design is College Degree leading to BigCo job.

Solution: More employers should recognize (and students should consider) other forms of Signalling:

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