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Everyone who's looked into this issue knows the solution is to use examinations rather than education - a degree should be given if you can pass some stringent

Everyone who's looked into this issue knows the solution is to use examinations rather than education - a degree should be given if you can pass some stringent examinations regardless of how the knowledge got into your head. You separate instruction from assessment and the incentives work out much, much better. And the cost goes way, way down. However, we are stuck in this horrible equilbrium and I don't see much hope of getting out. Scott has a post on these awful equilbriua called Meditations on Moloch that's pretty depressing:http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ I can see one way of maybe getting out of this. If one nice country was to implement this examination-based approach and then offer citizinship to those who score very well on a "general degree examination" (basically an intelligence test) they might be able to setup a brain-drain dynamic that would maybe push us out of this awfulness. Said country could even subsidise the very brightest with the equivalent of a signing bonus. Even a permanent no-strings-attached basic income for the brightest of the bright would be very cheap as they're so rare, and may be worth it for the positive externalities as they're the type of people who build new industries. "We'll pay you to live, work, learn, and be credentialed here" may be enough to dull the luster of the ivies.

Turing_Machine 11y ago
Examinations are just a proxy measure (like grades in general). They have historically been used for logistic reasons, many of which no longer exist (or are much less compelling). They stick around for the same reason that everything else sticks around in academia: Because It Has Always Been So (another example: lectures). A portfolio of actual work is much better than an examination. A github repo with a bunch of actual working code in it is much better than an hour of writing pseudocode on a whiteboard.
- Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
  Of course they are a proxy, but they are much better and cheaper proxies. I was assuming that credentialism would remain - examination-based degrees make credentialism much less costly.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    Cheaper? Certainly. Better? That's debatable. I don't see any compelling reason for thinking that the degree of knowledge that can be measured on a one hour (or even a five hour) exam is comparable to the degree of knowledge that can be measured from a larger body of work (whether that work represents continuing interaction between an instructor and student over the course of a semester, or a self-directed large-scale portfolio project). I'm probably showing my age here, but in the heyday of Novell there was a phenomenon called the "paper CNE". The military has long referred to those who've gone through an abbreviated officer training process as "ninety day wonders" (not a compliment). Other examples abound.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ci5er 11y ago
When I'm hiring for a startup, I look for someone who can do the job well. When I used to be hiring for a large multi-national, I was more interested in someone who could do the job and put up with a certain (large) amount of institutional bullshit. A high GPA from a challenging school is a "signal" for just that very thing. Part of what follows is edited from a WSJ column from 2007... Most of us would agree that most professional jobs require a basic intellectual aptitude. And what has changed since the 1970s is that the court has developed a body of law that prevents employers from directly screening for such aptitude. The landmark case was Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971). A black coal miner claimed discrimination because his employer required a high-school diploma and an intelligence test as prerequisites for promotion to a more skilled position. The court ruled 8-0 in the miner's favor. "Good intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as 'built-in headwinds' for minority groups," Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote. This became known as the "disparate impact" test, and it applies only in employment law. Colleges and universities remain free to use aptitude tests, and elite institutions in particular lean heavily on exams such as the SAT in deciding whom to admit. For a prospective employee, obtaining a college degree is a very expensive way of showing that he has, in effect, passed an IQ test. But why are employers able to get away with requiring a degree without running afoul of Griggs? Because colleges and universities -- again, especially elite ones -- go out of their way to discriminate in favor of minorities. By admitting blacks and Hispanics with much lower SAT scores than their white and Asian classmates, purportedly in order to promote "diversity," these institutions launder the exam of its disparity. Thus the higher-education industry and corporate employers have formed a symbiotic relationship in which the former profits by acting as the latter's gatekeeper and shield against civil-rights lawsuits. Little wonder that in 2003, when the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of discriminatory admissions policies at the University of Michigan, 65 Fortune 500 companies filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging that they be upheld. What is happening now, though, is that now that everyone "needs" a degree to get a job - standards for entry, getting good grades and graduating are being lowered. And subsidies kick in (OP's article's point). There is even a push now to lower the standards for the bar exam. This is crucial because part of competition between legal degree programs is % of graduates able to pass that bar. With lowering the bar for entry and grades, the percentage drops. Which looks bad. Instead of fixing the problem, they are trying to fix the optics. What I am worried about w/ any certification-only program is exactly this same phenomenon. The signal of the certificate and the truth of the certificate diverge as the bars are lowered. People stop treating it as a trustworthy signal. Employers, reasonably, want people who can do the job or learn how to do the job. And there are a lot of candidates to work through. If you can't test them and if the degrees -- or certificates -- are worthless signals, then ... I don't know where we end up.
Nomentatus 11y ago
Indeed, this may be the central error of the Universitas - originally the Universitas was a union of teachers who did not create, give or mark the exams - usually for admission to careers in law - because that was the exclusive province of the Catholic Church. "Universitas" was and is just the latin word for "guild" - any guild. Once the professors began in effect, to judge their own work, relevance and competence (along with their students' qualities) the jig was up. The union has become the company as well, so of course it's expensive and largely worthless.

Turing_Machine 11y ago

Examinations are just a proxy measure (like grades in general). They have historically been used for logistic reasons, many of which no longer exist (or are much less compelling). They stick around for the same reason that everything else sticks around in academia: Because It Has Always Been So (another example: lectures). A portfolio of actual work is much better than an examination. A github repo with a bunch of actual working code in it is much better than an hour of writing pseudocode on a whiteboard.

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
Of course they are a proxy, but they are much better and cheaper proxies. I was assuming that credentialism would remain - examination-based degrees make credentialism much less costly.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  Cheaper? Certainly. Better? That's debatable. I don't see any compelling reason for thinking that the degree of knowledge that can be measured on a one hour (or even a five hour) exam is comparable to the degree of knowledge that can be measured from a larger body of work (whether that work represents continuing interaction between an instructor and student over the course of a semester, or a self-directed large-scale portfolio project). I'm probably showing my age here, but in the heyday of Novell there was a phenomenon called the "paper CNE". The military has long referred to those who've gone through an abbreviated officer training process as "ninety day wonders" (not a compliment). Other examples abound.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

ci5er 11y ago

When I'm hiring for a startup, I look for someone who can do the job well. When I used to be hiring for a large multi-national, I was more interested in someone who could do the job and put up with a certain (large) amount of institutional bullshit. A high GPA from a challenging school is a "signal" for just that very thing. Part of what follows is edited from a WSJ column from 2007... Most of us would agree that most professional jobs require a basic intellectual aptitude. And what has changed since the 1970s is that the court has developed a body of law that prevents employers from directly screening for such aptitude. The landmark case was Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971). A black coal miner claimed discrimination because his employer required a high-school diploma and an intelligence test as prerequisites for promotion to a more skilled position. The court ruled 8-0 in the miner's favor. "Good intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as 'built-in headwinds' for minority groups," Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote. This became known as the "disparate impact" test, and it applies only in employment law. Colleges and universities remain free to use aptitude tests, and elite institutions in particular lean heavily on exams such as the SAT in deciding whom to admit. For a prospective employee, obtaining a college degree is a very expensive way of showing that he has, in effect, passed an IQ test. But why are employers able to get away with requiring a degree without running afoul of Griggs? Because colleges and universities -- again, especially elite ones -- go out of their way to discriminate in favor of minorities. By admitting blacks and Hispanics with much lower SAT scores than their white and Asian classmates, purportedly in order to promote "diversity," these institutions launder the exam of its disparity. Thus the higher-education industry and corporate employers have formed a symbiotic relationship in which the former profits by acting as the latter's gatekeeper and shield against civil-rights lawsuits. Little wonder that in 2003, when the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of discriminatory admissions policies at the University of Michigan, 65 Fortune 500 companies filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging that they be upheld. What is happening now, though, is that now that everyone "needs" a degree to get a job - standards for entry, getting good grades and graduating are being lowered. And subsidies kick in (OP's article's point). There is even a push now to lower the standards for the bar exam. This is crucial because part of competition between legal degree programs is % of graduates able to pass that bar. With lowering the bar for entry and grades, the percentage drops. Which looks bad. Instead of fixing the problem, they are trying to fix the optics. What I am worried about w/ any certification-only program is exactly this same phenomenon. The signal of the certificate and the truth of the certificate diverge as the bars are lowered. People stop treating it as a trustworthy signal. Employers, reasonably, want people who can do the job or learn how to do the job. And there are a lot of candidates to work through. If you can't test them and if the degrees -- or certificates -- are worthless signals, then ... I don't know where we end up.

Nomentatus 11y ago

Indeed, this may be the central error of the Universitas - originally the Universitas was a union of teachers who did not create, give or mark the exams - usually for admission to careers in law - because that was the exclusive province of the Catholic Church. "Universitas" was and is just the latin word for "guild" - any guild. Once the professors began in effect, to judge their own work, relevance and competence (along with their students' qualities) the jig was up. The union has become the company as well, so of course it's expensive and largely worthless.