I think are two different stages we're conflating here. Education, in the resume / HR sense is absolutely a signal. Education, in maintaining and excelling in

I think are two different stages we're conflating here. Education, in the resume / HR sense is absolutely a signal. Education, in maintaining and excelling in your profession is knowledge. It's lamentable that degrees are used as filters, but I wouldn't trust someone to do an electrical engineering job who didn't have a related degree. There's simply too much to learn. (Yes, exceptions do exist, but they're not common) I'd argue the more pointed questions to colleges should be: if you're not equipping your graduates with the latter knowledge, then what are they buying? And why should they continue to pay you?