Not sure if my barber needs to sit through a year or two of school to be effective, for one random example in many places. Sure, modern education can be seen s

Not sure if my barber needs to sit through a year or two of school to be effective, for one random example in many places. Sure, modern education can be seen somewhat as a proxy for modern jobs. But it also is used as gatekeeping for jobs that have no business requiring prior education and which did not just a few decades prior. Even when jobs don't "technically" require a degree these days - those holding them raises the bar on everyone else. If you can hire all college educated baristas for your coffee shop, you likely don't get down to the 18 year old kid who just wants to work hard on something meaningful and directly in front of him - even if they would make better employees in the end. No reason to take any chances if you can get pre-vetted mediocracy. I'd argue the gates are being raised now in tech as well - many entry level positions in IT that you once could talk your way into and learn on the job are now credentialed. Interesting times.