[washadjeffmad]

A four year degree shows a man can be trained.

After guiding in the low hundreds of employees from a place of no experience to being competent in technical roles, I've learned that the outcomes of training are a test of management and leadership. People you might avoid in passing on the street, whose life circumstances you might disdain, who have succeeded nowhere else can be trained to do immensely complicated and valuable things and make a career out of it.

If you don't want anecdata, then look no further than the success of the US military. You might have fewer teeth than fingers, but they'll find a place for you.

[rayiner]

Four year college graduates are selected from among a pool of people who did well in high school. Likewise, I suspect the employees you work with were not hired from among the ranks of the chronically unemployed. The US military is not a good counter-example. Members of the armed forces, both at the enlisted and officer levels, are better educated than the population as a whole.

This is not a matter of “disdaining” anyone’s “life circumstances.” It’s a matter of acknowledging that infrastructure work requires skills that not everyone has, just like programming does.