I treated the NPR story on some companies' decision to loosen hiring requirements for certain jobs by not requiring a college degree as background noise, until at the very end I was startled by its dismissive description of a college diploma as just "a piece of paper that someone paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for."
Really? Is that all that it is? Is that what years of study boil down to?
I am perfectly willing to admit that plenty of jobs need no degree, native intelligence coupled with basic training being sufficient. I will also admit that education is wasted on some people — though they graduate from a college, they gain nothing by it. I will further agree that both subjects are perfectly legitimate for a radio segment.
But denying the value to education as such?
Thinking
that I had misheard, I listened again (NPR's transcript did not contain
the quote that so ruffled me) — and sure enough, it was there, right
toward the end, 3:53 into the segment. Also, the segment had an
unmistakable agenda that I missed the first time around. "Some
economists ... say employers requiring a four-year degree increases
social and racial inequality[.] ... [I]n 2021 college degrees have
become a proxy for race and class in America. If you arbitrarily say
that a job needs to have a bachelor's degree, you are screening out over
70% of African-Americans. You're screening out about 80% of
Latino-Latina workers, and you're screening out over 80% of rural
Americans of all races. And you're doing that before any skills are
assessed. It's not fair."...........To Read More....
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