> Bryan Caplan in his book The Case Against Education suggests that employers value college degrees partly as a signal of conformism, and that that's the reason

> Bryan Caplan in his book The Case Against Education suggests that employers value college degrees partly as a signal of conformism, and that that's the reason college is so hard to replace. Perhaps, but in high-skill fields most qualified people will be graduates regardless. Whatever you think of college degrees as an employer, most of your employees will have them. It's not entirely obvious demand for formal education is driven by the industry. It's tautologically true that college signals conformism since most (in a given field) go. And companies may indeed use it as a signal for conformism (or lack of the opposite). But it doesn't necessarily follow that the industry actively thinks college is uniquely good at creating this signal.