Imagine a world without mandatory college diplomas

The Washington Post reports:

This should send a small shiver through the spines of anyone employed in academia: the recruiting site Glassdoor has published a list of companies that no longer require a college degree — including professional heavyweights Google, Apple and Ernst & Young. If firms like these no longer insist upon a sheepskin, it seems just possible that the decades-long trend of requiring more and more education to maintain a toehold in the middle class might reverse.

To be clear, we’re a long way from returning to the days when enrollments were tiny, and cutting-edge technology firms were founded by ambitious machinists rather than Harvard dropouts. But our reverence for the college diploma is a social norm, not an economic necessity, as economist Bryan Caplan cogently argued in his recent book, “The Case Against Education.” There are better ways, such as apprenticeships or management training programs, to sort out workers who are bright and conscientious — especially given the barriers this throws up for talented people without the financial or social capital to obtain a four-year degree.

Imagine that.