[em-bee]

academia is for research, not for jobs. our obsession with academic degrees is an abuse of the academic system. it is used as a tool to filter candidates, but in my opinion it should actually be illegal to require an academic degree for any job that isn't about research. that's not what academic degrees were designed for. academia isn't tone deaf, it's the industry that is misguided.

germany introduced the concept of fachhochschule, which is specifically designed to fill that gap. fachhochschule is not academia, but it is designed to teach skills for jobs. the US could do something similar by designating colleges for jobs and limiting universities to research. an institution could offer both on the same campus, and there could be overlap in the classes. it just should be clear what is a job qualification and what is a research qualification.

[yieldcrv]

my comment about apprenticeships was modeled on Germany's system too

I agree that the industry is misguided, but academia knew what it was gatekeeping and that their admitted population was not there for research, but for the industry

[em-bee]

that's true, but it's not reasonable to expect them to change that. we need academia for research. i don't want universities to change. if people don't want research then we should build other institutions for that.