First, baked into your reasoning is an assumption of strong rationality and plenty of information. Even if levels are acceptable on average, an informed person

First, baked into your reasoning is an assumption of strong rationality and plenty of information. Even if levels are acceptable on average, an informed person will recognize there is considerable variation. No rational person can blame an individual for not knowing something due to circumstances beyond their control. Not every qualified student in subject X has a parent / education / life experience that will give them an upbringing and background knowledge that will give them a good preparation for asking questions and preparing for industry Y. This realization quickly dispenses with any notion of people as perfect rational decision makers. It also dispenses with blaming or punishing people who don't have such advantages. It should also reduce the "halo" effect of prestigious schools and workplaces. Since luck and circumstances play such a high role in, say, admissions to top universities, people should act accordingly and stop elevating themselves. People make mistakes-- this is statistically inevitable. Making harsher laws, reducing the safety net, and making insurance policies extremely strict to reduce moral hazard would make people more cautious and responsible, so the argument goes. But that argument often gets taken as dogma, and it not checked against reality. In my view, consistent with philosophers such as John Rawls, optimizing for strictness is rarely the best technique to build a good society.