"Well, the world needs ditch diggers too, Danny."
---Judge Smails; Caddy Shack.

Good point. I have known of people who did poorly in high school and on college entry tests that excelled in college. One friend had such a low law entrance score that there was some doubt about his chances for admittance. Yet he excelled in law school and has been a partner in solid law firms of excellent repute for integrity and effectiveness.

He had come from a background that placed lesser emphasis on education. However, no test could measure his level of perseverance.

Our higher education system needs an overhaul. For the majority of students who attend college, it serves as little more than a signalling mechanism to eventual employers that a person has the ability to learn and perform well as an employee. Surely there must be a more efficient way to fill this role, as well as the social benefits of attending college.

It's worth noting that the article isn't really about the typical not-so-terrific college undergrad who drifts into college after finishing high school, but really more about a more particular population of older students trying to get a degree to advance their prospects. They typically already have jobs, presumably ones that they are reasonably good at -- these are mostly going to be a self-selected set of people with at least a modicum of self-discipline and gumption -- but they want something better. And we have told them, as a society: you want something better for yourself? Then get a degree. This sounds like a fair bargain to propose, because the picture is one in which a person with such a degree will be better in some tangible way, presumably leading to higher productivity or something like that. But if this mechanism is unavailable or just plain non-functioning for so many people in this group (again, even the ones with the drive and discipline to make a real try at it), then the bargain being proposed is a mug's game, and ends up being not a staircase for self-advancement, but a trap-door for making an inequitable economic arrangement seem fairer than it really is.