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from the we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-degree dept.
New Executive Order Fights Credential Inflation In The Federal Workforce:
On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to fill job vacancies based on merit, rather than require a minimum level of education for candidates seeking open positions. The order rightly recognizes that a job candidate with several years of relevant experience may be just as qualified, if not more so, than one who has collected a stack of advanced degrees.
"Employers adopting skills- and competency-based hiring recognize that an overreliance on college degrees excludes capable candidates and undermines labor-market efficiencies," the order reads. "Currently, for most Federal jobs, traditional education — high school, college, or graduate-level — rather than experiential learning is either an absolute requirement or the only path to consideration for candidates without many years of experience."
The order still allows federal agencies to prescribe minimum educational requirements for job candidates if the degree is legally required by the state or local government where the federal employee will be working. Additionally, they may consider a candidate's education if the degree "directly reflects the competencies necessary" to do the job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:06PM
Check out this [nytimes.com] admittance test for Harvard from 1869. The accompanying article is here [nytimes.com]. Of the 210 candidates who took the test in 1870, 185 were admitted. Incoming freshmen were expected to know Latin and Greek, the whole of Virgil, Caesar's Commentaries, as well as an in depth *understanding* of mathematics as demonstrated by the exam.
But I think this also demonstrates a very serious argument in favor of this executive order.
A number of decades back we started telling everybody to get a degree because people with degrees have good jobs, so you too can have a good job if you get a degree. But this was always fake and based on a gross misunderstanding of life. Companies didn't value the degrees, they valued the sort of people getting them. At a time when college was completely unnecessary, and also extremely challenging, people who actually chose to pursue it showed *inherent* initiative, motivation, and probably a good dose of intelligence on top. And so a degree generally indicated a very special person.
But today? We're up to literally more than 1 in 8 [wikipedia.org] people having at least a masters and 45% having at least some sort of a degree. They just don't mean anything anymore. And not only that but at the same time everybody started getting degrees we also started handing out educational loans like cotton candy which sent university costs skyrocketing since there was practically no limited to what could be "afforded". And so now not only do degrees mean much less than ever before but they also cost *vastly* more than ever.
And so I still think a degree is probably a good idea if (1) you can get into a good school and (2) pursue a meaningful major. But in general there is a much stronger argument than ever before to avoid getting a degree. And so forcing people into what is, in general, going to be a bad value proposition is just not cool.