I've been thinking about this for quite some time, and lately I've even talked with a friend of mine about this: Is higher education really necessary for all kinds of jobs? Is academia to some degree let's not say a scam but superfluous?
I'm not talking about medicine, biology or rocket science (i.e. anything that requires a higher understanding of physics). I mean the average white collar jobs. Of course nobody wants a surgeon who doesn't have a formal education to work on your body, or a doctor giving you advice. Neither do we want to be catapulted into the outer space by a device built by a novice. If you have an administrative job, you don't really need a college degree. So, it's really baffling me that there's a trend to gatekeep people from entering jobs through a college.
Let's say you had the bright idea to study political science or sociology. What did you actually learn? Perhaps some rudimentary knowledge about statistics and how to press the right buttons in SPSS or enter the right commands in Julia. And if you're particularly creative, you can even generate a regression model. Spectacular! But do you actually make use of these skills once you enter a company? If you don't end up as a cab/uber driver because of your major, you'll probably end up in an NGO or a governmental job. Perhaps you'll do work for a political campaign. Either way, your task won't require you to do anything you've learned. It'll be mostly answering emails, coordinating the schedule or distribute work for your team, make pretty PowerPoint slides (I'm looking at the people in the Big Four) and hold speeches. I'm sure reading about Marx and Plato have helped you a lot!
What about journalism? It's one of the biggest gatekeepers right now. You pretty much have to have a college degree these days. And what do you learn? How to open Tor Browser? Or perhaps how to use a search engine, beg people on social media to use their videos? Come the fuck on. Oh, and have you looked at what these guys's major is? Theater, English, some other language, music, sometimes sociology or polsci and there's also a major in journalism... And what do they write about? Politics, economy, sports... Basically about anything.
Oh, and IT? Most of the programmers are self-taught. It's mostly a trial and error process, googling and looking up stuff on stackoverflow. Or do people seriously think that everyone goes to a university to become an exceptionally skilled programmer? I mean just search for "Druga Soft" on YouTube...
Let's take a look at the developing world then. The workers there are doing pretty much the same work without having an education of "equal quality." So, did nobody ask how they are able to do the same work as the westerners with their vocational school diploma? Mind you, I'm not talking about medicine, biotech or rocket science.
The point I'm trying to make is that mastery comes from practicing a profession for a long time. And you certainly don't need a formal education to be a clerk or send emails. So, aren't regulations counterproductive when it comes to these kind of jobs? Isn't that stopping growth?
This brings me to my next point: Higher education should be accessible only to the elite. With elite I mean high-performers, who do understand biology, physics, medicine, mathematics or have the aptitude and talent to do so. This way we could make sure that the resources are distributed fairly in academia and the excellent students and professors are not stretched out.