> Law schools didn't exist until the turn of the century. IIRC, in the UK there were all kinds of private tutors who'd prepare students for bar / medicine exam

> Law schools didn't exist until the turn of the century. IIRC, in the UK there were all kinds of private tutors who'd prepare students for bar / medicine exams. But most degrees are more about attainment than accreditation. A degree doesn't let you do anything, it's just a line in a resume, and possibly some skills and connections you picked up along the way. The question is, if it's simply a glorified 3 year intelligence / work ethics test, why can't private providers create something equivalent? The US has some messed up law about intelligence tests being racist (for good reasons at the time - IQ tests were being used to block poorly educated blacks from doing jobs which didn't require any real IQ), but all kinds of skills tests could be managed by private providers. It could also be packaged with some kind of value added analysis. HR tends to suck at analysis, so it could be made to compliment what they do.