[pjscott]

There's a simple reason for it: since people who don't go to college are considered failures, most everybody who has the test scores to get into college attends, and then some of them flake out and drop out, and the rest graduate. The end result is a generic college degree which says: "This person is smart enough to get into college, and reliable enough not to be kicked out." Which is actually a pretty valuable recommendation, so employers require it, so people who don't go to college have a hard time getting jobs, GOTO 10.