Well look, its pretty obvious that people who are successful didn't learn most of the skills they use in college. Thats not the claim that is being made though

Well look, its pretty obvious that people who are successful didn't learn most of the skills they use in college. Thats not the claim that is being made though. The claim is that going to college somehow increases your chances of being successful. I.e. that it sets you on the right path to becoming successful. How could this be? Could be that it teaches you something useful (problem solving, the ability to power through difficult assignments, etc...) that is necessary in a lot of jobs. I worked for a company before where they didn't necessarily hire people with CS degrees or backgrounds. They just hired smart people and taught them what was necessary. Some people would claim that these people were smart enough to do this because of their college education. Note: I'm not necessarily sure that college does make you smarter in a relevant way. As has been pointed out, most of the studies have bad methodology and anecdotal evidence is not sufficient to prove a point. So all we can do here is lay out theories .