College Degrees and the Modern Caste System

Nearly all your life growing up in a democracy, you hear the message of merit and hard work. Everyone from politicians to parents, mentors and businesses send the same message. Work hard, do your best work, play by the rules and you will get ahead. Many try to live this way because they fervently believe in it. Many people exited college with the sense they will achieve more because school made them smarter.

Now, we have the college admissions scandal of 2019. The scandal has implications for many people including the poor and middle class, ethnic minorities in western countries, people with disabilities, and many others. The education system for all the good it does has a side to it that can be far from the ideal. The view of modern education is it does often serve as another way to mislead the less well off and minorities that progress is being made contrary to the reality. This can take root in official areas of life where entrenched ideas about who advances and leads is cleverly sustained over many generations with only the briefest of respite.

What does the latest situation teach us? Well, if you read the book, Excellent Sheep, you already know everything uncovered by this scandal. I discussed that book a few years ago in a related post.

Many comments on the Internet about the present development have been informative. Five points are particularly salient. The five that resonated seems connected to the glaring contrast with equality.

• The 0.01% did not like some of the 0.1% edging in on their territory.
• Not everyone walking around with a degree earned it but you can’t tell the difference.
• A degree does not mean you are smart in the degree’s main subject.
• Many degree holders talk and write well and are clever in social dynamics.
• The point of a degree is to grant you automatic authority over those with a lower credential.

That last point, automatically conferred authority, is not the intent of many who pursue it, but it does become its defining feature. A person with a master’s degree in an engineering discipline who now sits on the board of a major company, what does their credential offer in terms of business decisions? Would not a socially adjusted electrician with three times the experience be a better candidate for the board? In reality, the answer is no.

What that means is the rhetoric about merit and hard work tends to be an obligatory statement. It says more about the person giving the statement hinting they make no outward distinctions among co-workers, customers, or students. Persons in a mixed group with a varied credential make-up can be at ease. No one will be given preference on the basis of their credential. The person making the statement does not feel those with higher credentials are superior people. In practice, the results differ greatly.

The huge sums of money spent to get rich kids into college may seem absurd. Why not get in through more conventional means? The problem is an affluent person’s entrance into higher education should appear smooth on the surface. No one wants the track record of being rejected 3 times or simply not making the cut. At the same time, those seeking entrance and having the financial means to do so can simply go to schools of choice without issue.

Age old ways of accomplishing the same things include:

• A huge donation to the school for a building in your name.
• All your descendants gain automatic entrance to the school on the basis of a major donation.
• A donation and a speech followed by an honorary degree.

Apparently, the individuals involved in the scandal were not rich enough to do any of those things. They had to go a different route. This may sound jaded, but I do not blame them. Many of them have seen the system work just like this in many areas of life for most of their lives. The difference this time is they are the ones being showcased, but this is the way human society works. Favoritism is a feature of how groups function.

This is favoritism in an institutionalized form. We always favor those who seem to have something more. In this case, the appearance of more intellect, higher communication skills, and training in various ways of thinking and decision-making. At least, that is what we think exists and to fulfill that prophecy, we promote them higher lowering ourselves in the process. Our trust in their superiority reinforces stratification over endless generations.

Why are there debates about the declining middle-class? Why have we not eliminated poverty? Despite all the technological advancement (some of which is dubious) why do most still struggle with lower wages while others coast with big cars, houses, and country club memberships? Humans are addicted to class distinction and most protests to the contrary reflect a momentary duck-and-dodge on a path many endorse in private. Why else do so many go into huge debt for a credential that others pay the equivalent of 100 individual tuitions to maintain the social place of their descendants?

A raw and revealing discussion on Slashdot has several great comments on the matter.

Part II

Do you need to graduate college in order to be smart, invent things, and make great decisions?

The answer is absolutely and unequivocally no. Again, this may not be your personal intention regarding college, but the power elites invented college / university in Germany, Britain, and the United States. The purpose of college is for power elites to reinforce their position over the rest of society. The fact that everyone else goes into debt to play the game (sounds like gambling doesn’t it) only makes the caste system seem fair. That blinds most people to the fact that the same generations of power (at the highest levels) have continued to run the show. Only the second and third tiers (still in the 1%) change out every now and then.

How can I prove that a college degree is not a requirement to be smart? Easy. Several multi-billion dollar big tech companies came into existence through well-connected rich kids or those otherwise connected to rich kids and their parents. Many of those founders did not finish or do anything more than a high school diploma. The main ingredient to their success was how they were raised, the time they had available to pursue their passions, and who they knew.

Does a college degree guarantee smart decisions or the best work? Many great video games came from people who did not go to college or finish it. We have numerous security bugs and weekly updates needed in mobile apps and operating systems because the PhDs running the show still can’t produce perfect software. That is not to say that someone without a PhD can do better but in a world where the degreed and non-degreed produce roughly the same results from the standpoint of the rest of us using these gadgets, what was all that study for?

No one is smart in every subject. Some people have a talent for working with people. Others have talent regarding medicine, health, and chemistry. Natural talents exist in many areas such as law, science, engineering, music, creative writing, formal writing, accounting, and industry. Still others have a great talent for leadership and management. A degree program structure can help shape some of that but experience shows that experience matters more with the gap between those with credentials and those without, all other things being equal, is not significant enough to make degrees a requirement for selection and advancement.

As a result, anyone reading this, do not feel the pressure to have credentials. They meant a lot in ancient societies when the credentials were tied to actual hands-on skills but in the modern world very few degree programs are substantive in that way. I would say medicine and law are a few of the exceptions but not in every case because there are great non-western practices as well. Know the truth about western credentialism, its origins, and operating principles. A caste system to elevate social and economic status with marginal contributions to society.

Rather, pursue your own path to higher intelligence, higher skill, and nurture of the spirit as that will go further in terms of expression. Few things are as disappointing as seeing people with the same credentialed experience talk almost exactly the same way and in such a narrow zone as to exclude other valid points. Great concepts, useful methods, and sound perspectives do exist in formal academia but the weight we give academia is disproportionate to the claims of equality, social improvement, and material refinement evidenced in the real-world. Numbers of citations in a document, deference to peer review, and listing of patents are meaningless in the greater scheme in relation to what we actually see.

Do not pressure yourself to meet standards that have not proven themselves in relation to the debt required. Unless your goal is social and economic advancement on the basis of membership in a titular club with better potential access to the power elite. That can have benefits such as not having to work in a middle-class (see that word class again) or below job striving long hours and facing numerous difficulties. Relegating others to such conditions as they rise may prove worth it to some. Many have privately verbalized such sentiments. On the other hand, what if there is nothing wrong with a common life? Sometimes more is a disease.

Part III

Does college have to be about the credentials you earn and economic status?

Great literature, studies, research, and valuable contributions to society and progress do come out of universities and colleges. That is without question. Some academics espouse the pursuit of knowledge, the acquisition of education, and the betterment of the individual. Very compelling and many in academia do mean it. Some mean it so much that they sacrifice a great career in the private sector for a more pure knowledge journey. Some may achieve penultimate self-actualization or, some refined version of inner elevation.

If that is the reason you have for school, I can think of few alternatives that rank higher as a goal. You are best served by honestly assessing if that is your goal versus the secular benefits you may obtain described in parts 1 and 2. Despite the positive aspects that can exist in an academic context, the larger social issues previously discussed loom large. A few great questions to ask include the following:

• Can 2, 4, or 8 years of formal studies and research encapsulate education?
• What is more valuable … knowledge alone or its application?
• Can you be satisfied with lifelong study and is that an adequate substitute for debt laden credential acquisition?
• Do you need more from formal school than you can achieve yourself in terms of personal development?

The last question in that list is useful to observe. Another aspect of the college experience is as a type of finishing school. More often, the finishing school nature of college outweighs the technical knowledge gained (retained or not) and can distinguish an individual from others not exposed to such things. Now, it is true that finishing school can be extremely worthwhile in terms of secular success, but are there better ways to achieve it?

The university experience can be worthwhile and schools do may great decisions. An example is when one school decided to ban movie streaming to allow attendees to better focus on their studies. That is a great decision regardless of where you are on the overall topic of school admittance, availability, cost, and status perpetuation. School does not have to be all bad, even when you can’t watch TV while in class.