[BurningFrog]

> You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one

This is part of the problem.

Stop demanding a formal degree for jobs, allow anyone who can do the job to do it, and much/some of these problems will go away.

[Dannymetconan]

I think it is more of a problem of inflation.

If you get 50 application is easy just to automatically remove the X that don't have a college degree.

Similarly to the way you might have a GPA cut off of some amount but they don't actually care what your degree was in.

In Ireland there are a lot of people who go on to do a Masters because when a large number of people have degrees it makes you more competitive. Anecdotal most my friends will tell you they use neither their undergrad nor masters in work life

[BurningFrog]

I was mostly thinking of when lawmakers or regulators decree that to do job X you must have college degree Y.

As an employer with many resumes to choose between, you'll of course pick whoever you prefer.

Except if you're not allowed to hire them because they haven't paid a college for a document.

[Qwertious]

>Stop demanding a formal degree for jobs, allow anyone who can do the job to do it, and much/some of these problems will go away.

It's a symptom of people needing more jobs than are available - if there's a massive labour shortage these unnecessary requirements will evaporate overnight, and if people stop needing to work to survive these unnecessary requirements will evaporate overnight.

[coffeecat]

Excellent observation. I expect this is one problem among many which would be solved by a UBI or some other form of guaranteed economic security.

[srtjstjsj]

The majority of people don't go to expensive private college for the degree , as that is available cheaper elsewhere. They go for the feeling of elitism.

Some of the worst money wasting colleges are the scam trade schools like University of "Phoenix".

[hpkuarg]

University of Phoenix was founded and is based in Phoenix, Arizona, so if you want to put scare quotes on a part of it, maybe "University" of Phoenix is the better way. ;-)

[dodobirdlord]

I think their point is that most of the University of Phoenix's programs are online.

[jessaustin]

The time is past, when one could disparage online learning merely for being online.

[donw]

I don't think that UoP is being disparaged -- it just sounds a bit odd to tie a virtual university to a physical place.

On the other hand, "University of 4Chan" doesn't have the same ring to it.

[chii]

> They go for the feeling of elitism

it's not a feeling - it's real. Connections with other highly connected (and rich) people will give you more opportunities that merit alone won't give you.

[galaxyLogic]

It's hard to know what exactly the job will be in a few years. But if a person has successfully completed years of study you know they have a lot of background knowledge which MIGHT become useful in the job as circumstances change.

[zo1]

Sure - as soon as we allow IQ and other such metrics to be valid for job-applications (I would love to just sort-by-IQ when filtering job and team applications). There most certainly is an over-abundance of individuals willing to work for the available spots, and we're artificially handicapping the methods by which the pool can be pruned. That's why we have leet-code type quizzes in tech, they're essentially proxies for memorization, IQ and determination. Consequently, degrees are a secondary proxy for the above 3 criteria, so no wonder employers have been relying on it.