You are getting downvoted but this is absolutely true. In Russia, college is/used to be free and easy to get in to (I think they are limiting that now at least

You are getting downvoted but this is absolutely true. In Russia, college is/used to be free and easy to get in to (I think they are limiting that now at least to some extent). As a result, 1) Most students coast. From my CS class over the years, straight out of college I'd hire maybe 25% of the people in any CS/IT capacity. Not for a FAANG job, any job; most people wouldn't be able to build a reasonable PHP page or manage a 5-machine LAN for a retail store (or calculate a determinant of a 2x2 matrix) with their "Masters in CS". Not because they were not capable of it if they tried - in my impression, most never wanted to learn and never bothered. 2) More importantly, college diploma in Russia is/was an equivalent of high school diploma in the US, because of the credentials inflation. If you don't have one, in most cases there must be something wrong with you (which was true enough at least when I went to college). You could even use going to trade school as an insult - PTUshnik, with connotations anywhere from being dumb/lazy, to being a chav/petty criminal.