I don’t think most people going to 3rd-tier college to study humanities are doing it out of some abstract love of education. They’re doing it because every adult or counselor in their life told them they have to go to some college no matter what.
(NB: Talking about in the US)
Maybe we should not pretend that hiring is this optimally tuned machine that knows exactly whats needed
If I were hiring pilots, to go with the physical quality example, I would discriminate on height. You can be too short to operate an aircraft, and you can be too tall or too big to fit in some aircraft (I knew a helicopter pilot who only flew helicopters because he couldn't, physically, fit in fighter aircraft which had been his dream job). But if I were running an airline, I wouldn't use this as a discriminator on all my employees, only the ones that it made sense for.
Degrees ought to be treated similarly in white collar jobs.
I dare you to provide an explanation that is not illegal and/or deranged.
One is employees who are deeply in debt can be more easily abused than, for example, wealthy skilled tradesmen. You can do all kinds of things to woman with a student loan debt larger than a mortgage and she'll have to put up with it, whereas a journeyman electrician, in addition to being paid more, would simply move to a competing jobsite the next day.
The other reason is colleges highly promote diversity in freshmen accepted class statistics but always cover up graduating diploma holder statistics. You can kind of legally/illegally guarantee you hire a white woman or certainly tilt the odds against PoC, by demanding the office receptionist hold a bachelors degree in something "to maintain office culture because everyone else in the office went to college and we wouldn't want her to feel left out". Presumably those type of places where PoC need not apply, will soon require their janitors to have a four year degree in some sort of liberal art...
You would like to find people with the following characteristics: They can follow complex instructions with minimal oversight, they finish what they start, they have good social skills to work with colleagues and occasional outside parties, they are fully literate (i.e., spell well, read quickly, understand context), and can be trained and managed.
You're handed 300 resumes. How do you select the top 10-15 that are most likely to satisfy the requirements?
What would be your initial filtering criteria?
Obviously, once you have work experience and letters of reference, no one cares about your college. But you're not going to have that when you're 18.
University is also a social exercise, which can serve to signal that you are okay or at least exposed to the type of cultural norms that might exist at an employer that is already full of similarly college educated people.
> Obviously, once you have work experience and letters of reference, no one cares about your college. But you're not going to have that when you're 18.
That's actually not the case, unfortunately. My wife is fluent in two languages, can read and communicate in a couple more but isn't fluent, has 12+ years of experience, and letters of reference from CFOs and CEOs from major international corporations, and is struggling (here in the US) to get a non-minimum wage job in a medium sized city (we'd be better off if we were in a larger city, but this is where my work is right now).
My point was more that the signal an elite college serves is relatively short lived assuming you then get experience at highly regarded employers. For example, once you have worked at a FAANG, no one cares if you went to a low ranked school.
But it's not. It gives a good indication that the applicant has many, if not all, of the characteristics I listed.
And for many non-specialist jobs (data entry, call center, executive assistants, etc.) there is no relevant training program or certification. Few people grow up hoping to work at a call center or do data entry, so they're not going to go to school for that.
Again, a 4-year degree does not guarantee success, but it tells an employer far more than they were "willing to spend $40-80K for a piece of paper." Many people want to go to school to learn about something they love, then they get out and need a job.
I think it's fair for a hiring person to seek out degree holders as a desirable criteria.
As it is right now, being an average human in a developed country doesn't pay because there are lots of average humans in developing countries who are begging for work harder than you do.
More and more the Internet makes me feel that the US somehow lost the cold war and it’s now a dystopian nightmare.
And yet the country is attracting talent more than it exports it!
Guaranteed student loans in combination with private college simply doesn't work.
The way you zone your cities is causing widespread social problems.
Arresting people for doing drugs doesn't rehabilitate them.
It's not a dystopia, it's just lots of short sighted policies that cause long term failures.
Well, the fact that they are third-tier already tells you that they won’t get some cushy job from the education by itself.
Are they necessarily doing it for the love of education? Probably not. But I suspect that that motivation is more likely to be found in them than the students at the top-tier institutions that will be welcomed by the open embrace of six-figure salaries and social status once they graduate.