3 ms·

I agree with getting the US Gov out of the loan business, but i think we the market to react, and it has begun to. For many professions, colleges can be substi

I agree with getting the US Gov out of the loan business, but i think we the market to react, and it has begun to. For many professions, colleges can be substituted by trade schools. We are already seeing this surge in software, and i think we can expect the trend to move into other verticals. At some point, and for some majors this has already happened, a BS/BA stands to lose you money over a lifetime. At a point, college is no longer fiscally viable. In these cases, a cheaper, more targeted approach is highly marketable.

logfromblammo 11y ago
If you separate the testing and certification from the education, it isn't quite so important where the knowledge/skill came from, so long as the person has it. For instance, if you take the rock guitarist certification test, and pass, you should be able to play guitar passably well in a rock band. It doesn't matter if you studied in a music conservatory for a few years, or worked small-time gigs in bars and clubs, or played a guitar-learning video game. It's not the education that's the bottleneck. It's proving to others that you have the knowledge/skill in an efficient way. The professional associations for actuaries (SoA, CAS) runs their own testing regime. You can take a university course to prepare for the tests, but you don't have to. That testing and certification process has led to the situation where passing another exam usually triggers a pay increase. And actuaries consistently rate as having very high job satisfaction. ABMS runs certification tests for specialist physicians. Lawyers have the bar examinations and board certification for specialists. The same could happen for other careers. A group with a narrow focus could poach the testing and certification function from the generalist universities. For someone who has no need for external guidance with respect to a general education, and who knows what sort of career they want, they could skip college, and climb the ladder of a testing authority. That would present some risk that the authority itself fails in some way before all the tests are passed, and the career position established.

logfromblammo 11y ago

If you separate the testing and certification from the education, it isn't quite so important where the knowledge/skill came from, so long as the person has it. For instance, if you take the rock guitarist certification test, and pass, you should be able to play guitar passably well in a rock band. It doesn't matter if you studied in a music conservatory for a few years, or worked small-time gigs in bars and clubs, or played a guitar-learning video game. It's not the education that's the bottleneck. It's proving to others that you have the knowledge/skill in an efficient way. The professional associations for actuaries (SoA, CAS) runs their own testing regime. You can take a university course to prepare for the tests, but you don't have to. That testing and certification process has led to the situation where passing another exam usually triggers a pay increase. And actuaries consistently rate as having very high job satisfaction. ABMS runs certification tests for specialist physicians. Lawyers have the bar examinations and board certification for specialists. The same could happen for other careers. A group with a narrow focus could poach the testing and certification function from the generalist universities. For someone who has no need for external guidance with respect to a general education, and who knows what sort of career they want, they could skip college, and climb the ladder of a testing authority. That would present some risk that the authority itself fails in some way before all the tests are passed, and the career position established.