I think one of the important things I've learned since leaving higher education is that over the past ~50yrs a deep culture of gatekeeping and credentialism has

I think one of the important things I've learned since leaving higher education is that over the past ~50yrs a deep culture of gatekeeping and credentialism has developed which does far more harm than good. People are capable of thinking through problems themselves and are often able to take in high level parameters about a concept and come to a conclusion without a degree or some other signal that they are an "expert". This type of gatekeeping thinking essentially asserts the world as fixed. It asserts a world in which all possible domains of knowledge are known and only those with some set of credentials in that domain are allowed to speak to that domain. This both limits the possible benefits of multi-disciplinary pursuits but also asserts that there are no and can be no new domains of knowledge. It's very static thinking.