Huh. Hadn’t thought of the issue this way, but it makes sense to me if only because in hiring, considering a college degree as a proxy indicator for competence is exactly what I do:
Academia. What a scam.
In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., in the first and most famous of the disparate impact theory cases, that the use of broad-based aptitude tests in hiring practices was a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Around 1978, college tuition costs began to skyrocket, and haven’t let up since.
Coincidence? I think not.
The answer to busting the hyperinflationary tuition cost curve is to overturn the Griggs ruling. Employers, deprived of the opportunity to directly screen job applicants, have turned to the next available proxy tool of judgment: college degrees.
It doesn’t help that I still encounter college grads who can’t spell or even follow simple instructions to include a writing sample with their resume.
There’s a lot of buzz about the impending replacement of the college degree with massive open online courses or national certification programs — which I think is a very good thing, and moving much faster than the education unions and entrenched institutions would like.
But would employers’ use of such national certifications or aptitude tests in hiring be subject to attack on the basis of Griggs? Nobody’s going to pay for them if employers can’t touch the results with a ten-foot-pole. Or has Griggs in effect been overturned?
It’s funny that that isn’t allowed for private hiring, because the US Military does it every day. The services all use the ASVAB, Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, which every prospective recruit has to take. And depending on your ASVAB score, you might be given other, more specific aptitude tests as well…
Re:
“There’s a lot of buzz about the impending replacement of the college degree with massive open online courses or national certification programs — which I think is a very good thing, and moving much faster than the education unions and entrenched institutions would like.”
I hate to bust your euphoria bubble, David, but why would you even begin to think that any “national Certification” test wouldn’t be just another perpetuation of the dumbed-down, politically-correct education system of today. Once such a program is in place, which, BTW, it was in Europe sixty years ago, your list of job applicants who have passed their Certifications will be just as dumb as those today with college degrees.
The end result of such a program gets you nothing beside maybe making colleges and universities even more elite than they are today.