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You're missing a category because you're focused on the benefits from the students' perspective. Look at it from an employer's perspective: You have a 100 job

by liber8 14y ago

You're missing a category because you're focused on the benefits from the students' perspective. Look at it from an employer's perspective: You have a 100 job applications for one open position. Most of the kids went to mediocre to good colleges. Two or three of the kids went to Harvard/Stanford/other selective college. Who do you offer an interview to? Keep in mind, you're busy running a business. You don't have time to thoroughly analyze each application. You figure, if they're good enough for Harvard/Stanford/other selective college, they're good enough for me. So you start by interviewing the Harvard kids. This isn't irrational. Harvard/Stanford/etc. spend a ton of money screening hundreds of thousands of the nations' brightest kids. If you make it into one of those schools, there's a very, very good chance you're at least competent. Elite schools (as defined by things like USNWR) will always serve this function, so kids who want to follow this traditional path to success will always flock to them, or to anything that manages to offer the same signaling/screening effect.

tkahn6 14y ago
Sure this is a good point. You're referring to the the brand and stamp of approval a degree represents. I think that's really an extension of the 'skill verification' bullet point. One can easily imagine a program run by a trusted institution whereby a person pays a fee and they are evaluated over the course of a week or so. If they pass, they are given a stamp of approval, if not they either try to improve their skills or go to a lower-prestige institution and repeat the process.
- liber8 14y ago
  Sort of, but it's more than just a degree and/or verification of skills. As you suggest, there are a lot of ways to test whether someone has some of the skills needed to succeed. If you're looking to hire a java programmer, you could either build or find a short test that would reasonably determine how skilled someone is in java. Harvard offers much more. They already spent thousands of man hours combing through tens of thousands of applications from very smart kids all over the country. Even if everyone they accepted graduated (i.e. regardless of who gets a degree), they've already performed a talent search you could never hope to replicate.

by liber8 14y ago

tkahn6 14y ago

Sure this is a good point. You're referring to the the brand and stamp of approval a degree represents. I think that's really an extension of the 'skill verification' bullet point. One can easily imagine a program run by a trusted institution whereby a person pays a fee and they are evaluated over the course of a week or so. If they pass, they are given a stamp of approval, if not they either try to improve their skills or go to a lower-prestige institution and repeat the process.

liber8 14y ago
Sort of, but it's more than just a degree and/or verification of skills. As you suggest, there are a lot of ways to test whether someone has some of the skills needed to succeed. If you're looking to hire a java programmer, you could either build or find a short test that would reasonably determine how skilled someone is in java. Harvard offers much more. They already spent thousands of man hours combing through tens of thousands of applications from very smart kids all over the country. Even if everyone they accepted graduated (i.e. regardless of who gets a degree), they've already performed a talent search you could never hope to replicate.