Some people are arguing that not everyone should go to college.
This seems obvious to me.
If college degrees are primarily signals to others, they would no longer serve much purpose if everyone had one. For example:
- A college degree signals aptitude, knowledge, and motivation to potential employers. The more selective the college, the stronger the signal.
- A college degree signals intelligence, earning capacity and values to a potential mate. When dating, many people focus attention primarily on others with similar educational backgrounds.
- A college degree signals social status to new acquaintances. People generally enjoy being around similarly educated people.
If everyone had a college degree, making judgments based on these easily recognizable signals would be harder. Some may argue that this situation would force people to make judgements based on personal observations and not generalizations, but I think that we would just find other ways to generalize.
So, no . . . not everyone should go to college. Somehow, this idea doesn't seem controversial to me.