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
- 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).
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:
- alternative Credentials, Assessments, Transcripts
- Coding Bootcamp
- Certification (e.g. Microsoft, Cisco - see Varieties Of Info Technology Jobs)
- Occupational Licensing in related area
- Portfolio
- Badge systems
- MOOC completion
- Trade School
- SideProjects
- OpenSource code - GitHub
- World Of Warcraft and other team-game management
- Trial Period
- Apprenticeship
- Self-Employment: Entrepreneurship
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