Havings skills and a degree are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In my experience the degree was the gateway to gaining skills, not the method of doing so.
Also, I’d push back against the subtext that work experience gives skills. Plenty of people work a job for 10 years without having the adjacent job skills to be able to progress in that career or jump to another.
Critical thinking skills are the most important thing, and it’s possible to get a 4-year degree without actually picking them up or strengthening your skill sets in that area. But it’s also possible to work for 5 years without developing critical thinking skills, either.
In the end, no matter what you do with your time, only a small percentage of your effort is going into improving yourself. The people at work are trying to get stuff done for their employer, and the people at school are trying to get through the curriculum. It’s possible to do the work while the employer/school or even yourself cheats you out of the real long term benefits of actually learning during that time frame.
I think the degree is really more like evidence that you can get things done on your own. Parental involvement in the day to day is near zero for most people getting a degree. They also learn valuable social skills. But a degree isn’t the only way to get that. So it shouldn’t be a requirement. Yet attempting to determine if someone without a degree has that is costly and time consuming. Companies just want to take the easy path.
Havings skills and a degree are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In my experience the degree was the gateway to gaining skills, not the method of doing so.
Also, I’d push back against the subtext that work experience gives skills. Plenty of people work a job for 10 years without having the adjacent job skills to be able to progress in that career or jump to another.
Critical thinking skills are the most important thing, and it’s possible to get a 4-year degree without actually picking them up or strengthening your skill sets in that area. But it’s also possible to work for 5 years without developing critical thinking skills, either.
In the end, no matter what you do with your time, only a small percentage of your effort is going into improving yourself. The people at work are trying to get stuff done for their employer, and the people at school are trying to get through the curriculum. It’s possible to do the work while the employer/school or even yourself cheats you out of the real long term benefits of actually learning during that time frame.
I think the degree is really more like evidence that you can get things done on your own. Parental involvement in the day to day is near zero for most people getting a degree. They also learn valuable social skills. But a degree isn’t the only way to get that. So it shouldn’t be a requirement. Yet attempting to determine if someone without a degree has that is costly and time consuming. Companies just want to take the easy path.