Many employers use a university degree as a proxy to judge whether or not you're employable, not whether or not you are qualified. As the article rightly point

Many employers use a university degree as a proxy to judge whether or not you're employable, not whether or not you are qualified. As the article rightly points out, it's easier than ever to get a college degree, both because there are more universities offering them than ever before, and because the requirements to get those degrees are lower than ever before. Obtaining a degree merely shows whether or not you have the minimal foresight and work ethic required to be admitted to a university, and the even more minimal determination and resilience to actually get the degree. Thus, many employers think "If you can't muster a degree, in this lax environment, you're probably not going to be a good employee." That said, if you can prove you have that determination, work ethic, and competence to do the job, many employers wouldn't give two shits if you never got an otherwise meaningless degree. The problem is, there's not a lot of other great proxies to demonstrate those qualities, especially proxies that would save your resume from getting tossed immediately. As to the "degree snobbery" thought, it makes a lot of sense for some employers to use universities as their recruiting system. Think about law firms that only hire Harvard law grads. Snobbery at its worst, right? Well, say Harvard Law gets 10000 applicants each year. This group is already self-selected to a certain extent, because most people who don't have a shot at getting in don't even apply. Next, Harvard only selects the most elite candidates (those with perfect scores only have about a 50% chance of getting in). So, anybody who makes it out of Harvard, even if they're at the bottom of the class, has already been screened extensively. If an employer just picked totally at random from this Harvard pool, he's got an excellent shot at picking a great employee, because the barrel he's choosing from has already been screened for him. This can hugely reduce the amount of effort an employer needs to put into making a hire, and so, even if lots of qualified candidates are overlooked, such a system might still make great sense.