A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
No one really goes to college and grad school to learn. Higher ed is commoditized as a:<p>* insurance policy, where students use it to avoid limiting themselves to low-status and low-paying careers<p>* lottery ticket, the gateway to a &quot;prestige&quot; career track [1]<p>* status signaling mechanism, where young people flex their educational elitism [2]<p>And higher ed is arguably bad at what its supposed be good at - a delivery mechanism of relevant knowledge. If you have ever interviewed a fresh grad who didn&#x27;t study &quot;Cracking the Coding Interview&quot; or did not have a few &quot;side projects&quot; under their belt, then you know what I am talking about.[3] The internet is <i>the most</i> effective information distribution delivery and it&#x27;s much cheaper, no wonder the value of college is in question.<p>[1] Consulting, finance, corporate middle management, grad school<p>[2] How many times have you been on a date and you tell or ask the other person where they wen to college, what they majored in, etc<p>[3] Arguably, the standard that hiring managers set for new grads is too high. Perhaps it&#x27;s the employer that should be training fresh grads, but that is not how the current job market works. I think about this a lot because it causes problems for both young people and employers.