Requiring a degree for a job that doesn't utilize the information the acquisition of which the degree is meant to connote is clearly untenable. That's a given. The author is on point about market demands for higher education being inflated but is way off base about the value and role of education in society and economy, and his dismissal of Bernie Sanders's proposal for free higher education is similarly untenable. The main failing in the author's argument is a poor framing of the issue. The author assumes that the economy and society can be planned without acknowledging the social harm a planned economy and society will necessarily cause. Furthermore, the author assumes that our economy and society can be planned - a false assumption - and that the government's primary role is in planning the lives of its citizens rather than assuring their lives, liberty, and opportunity - a very dangerous one. The author frames education as a doorway to a career, when in truth it is more akin to a hallway allowing access to many more doors than are available without it. Worst of all, the author is completely incorrect about the main pressures causing a rise in the price of education.
Take the argument not to allow free education as per the Sanders proposal. To reduce it to absurdity, what impetus is there for us to educate plumbers beyond middle school (8th grade)? From what I know of the profession, most of the education they will utilize has already been acquired. What impetus is there for us to educate fast food workers beyond elementary school (6th grade)? From what I know of the profession, most of the education they will utilize has already been acquired. What reason at all is there to educate police officers? From what I know of the profession, they aim at POC regardless of whether there's a multiple homicide or a birthday party in progress; such simple instructions require no education.
The impetus is that we don't live in a planned economy and society. We don't know who will be what when, and we don't want to enforce that such decisions be made once and for all at any point in a person's life. A kid might want to be a fast food worker, like his dad, in 1st grade; a firefighter, like the men who recently saved his little sister from a house fire, in 6th grade; a police officer, to eradicate the drugs ruining his neighborhood, in 12th grade; a lawyer, to protect the poor renters like his parents from being evicted due to gentrification, as an undergrad; a software engineer, to his account book back into the black, when he fails to get into a law school. Individual lives are very chaotic and our expectations of what we want to do change throughout our lives. And in facilitating our ability to dynamically change course, education is the cornerstone. It's easy to look at the current occupation of a person and say, "You're a software engineer. You didn't need any of those Legal Studies courses or History courses or Latin-American studies courses.", but to do so is to dehumanize the person and her life experience, it is to discount her earlier hopes and dreams and ambitions, her current regrets and pains and struggle, it is to shrink wrap a person inside her professional title and place her on a supermarket shelf, deriding her "extra, useless" ingredients while doing so.
In this the author is also incorrect in distilling the value of education to the knowledge a degree or diploma is meant to proclaim. Education is also an experience. It's a breather while we choose course. Our economy is becoming so dynamic and unpredictable for such large sectors that during our middle years (30s-50s) and even soon after college, many of us change professions to more profitable sectors. And that's nothing to say about what we want to accomplish with our time on this planet. Those questions loom forever large on the horizon for much of our lives. College allows us to interact with thousands of others in a similar lost state. A college town is filled with mapmakers trying to see which way to go to "get there." Interacting with them gives a person the ability to see a little bit more of what her possibilities and potential can be. College helps those of us who are still lost after high school to get unlost. And even college is proving insufficient as a compass and square. Many, if not most, of us are still lost after college.
Moreover, we don't want to be living in a planned economy or society. We have done that before in the developed world, and much of the 2nd and 3rd world is doing that now. And along which lines would be plan our economy? Would we tie down youngsters to what they want to do at age 22? 18? 14? 12? 6? Would we force them to pursue their parents' profession? Answers to such questions are the basis of a very draconian government.
The "waste" of extra education is the price we must pay to allow ourselves varied opportunities and possibilities. Sanders is correct in urging the US to universally pay for higher education. Sanders's call is especially urgent to us as we are finding that many of us must go back to college or night classes much later in life to work for the remaining 10, 15, 20 years before the government will allow us to retire with enough in Social Security to live comfortably. Many middle-aged workers are finding themselves without work after the effects of the ongoing high tech revolution. Going or returning to college at the government's expense would allow them to take time and resources to direct their lives in a direction more desirable for them. In fact, Sanders's proposal, if it were to include living expenses as well as tuition, would be an excellent solution to homelessness. Not only would we be providing food and shelter, we would be providing a chance at a more meaningful life for those who deem it more meaningful and can't afford it.
The tech industry and its moguls are quite taken to pointing to a few outliers and saying that college is not essential, and to encourage college and high school students to drop out and pursue their dreams, entirely dismissing that those dreams might change in a year or even a month. The underlying assumption is that we magically know what to do with our lives at all times. But the truth is closer to most of us being lost throughout our lives. Dropping out and pursuing your life dream is great for those few for whom it works (Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos comes to mind), but the plan fails for a much greater number of us who end up going back to college anyway to improve our station in life at least.
I am suspicious as to whether the rising, oft frivolous degree requirements for many professions is due in part to a higher availability of such degrees. Why hire a high school graduate when you can get a more woman who graduated with a BA in History to do your firefighting? The woman holding the BA has demonstrated that she is smart and gets things done - at least enough to get a BA in History. If History BAs are applying, it should increase the requirements of getting the firefighting job. To turn the author's argument on its head, I assert that there is higher demand for education not because some jobs are requiring education when it is unnecessary, but because more of us are pursuing higher education to direct or re-stabilize our lives and some jobs are requiring education when it is unnecessary because it is becoming pore plentiful and readily available in our economy and society. And that's a good thing. People should be better educated, especially in the Liberal Arts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education) and Humanities. It would dramatically increase the quality of life for all of us. Or at least it would stop repeated isolated incidents of young Black men getting shot in this country.
As a last thought, I'm reminded of a recent NY Times (?) article posted on HN which ended with something akin to "Everyone is sure college isn't right for everyone, except their own kids."
Long post. Sorry for any mistakes.