Today, degrees are a way to communicate and verify to others that you have generated and currently possess some amount of intellectual and social capital, which

Today, degrees are a way to communicate and verify to others that you have generated and currently possess some amount of intellectual and social capital, which in the right situations can be converted to financial, political, and other hard forms of capital. The recent scandals don't necessarily indicate a degree don't verify capital stocks, but it does clearly demonstrate the divide between those who have capital and those who do not, and the myriad methods capital perseveres in self-preservation. And as these loopholes will most likely remain open in one way or another, it will continue to teach this lesson across generations. I think this, and numerous other blatant shows of power, underline just how important it is to federate capital across class boundaries and prevent capital concentration. The "old boys clubs" care about your pedigree. The SME CEO cares about putting food on the table for his/her family and his/her employees, and cares moreso for your merit. Greater capital distribution leads to stricter capital verification (yes you are smart in practice) due to the decentralization of trust, greater alignment between merit and success and exercise of existing talent surpluses, and higher societal cohesion due to greater class turnover.