Every so often, you come across an article that leaves you
thinking, “Gosh — I can’t believe he actually said that!” A recent essay that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education (Sept. 27, 2002) had that effect on me. It was written by a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Randall Collins. Collins entitled his piece, “The Dirty Little Secret of Credential Inflation” and what made it so remarkable was his audacity in speaking a truth so contrary to his professional interest.
Collins points out that the paper credentials that are so often established as a job requirement (either by law or by private choice) have been escalating for decades. In 1950, for example, most management positions were open to people with high school diplomas but no college degree. Gradually, businesses stopped considering applicants without a college degree. Now an MBA is considered essential for many positions. It isn’t the case that the work in business management has become steadily more difficult so that no person could handle the job without the additional years of formal education. The truth, as Collins puts it, is that “Holders of such degrees have attempted to justify the credential by introducing new techniques of management — often faddish, yet distinct enough to give a technical veneer to their activities.”
Whoa! Collins seems to be challenging the widely promoted idea that our modern, technology-saturated world requires workers with more and more education. That’s exactly what he’s doing. “The skills of cutting-edge industries are generally learned on the job or through experience” rather than in formal education, he writes. Furthermore, “a high tech society does not mean that a high proportion of the labor force consists of experts.” Doesn’t he know he’s undermining the foundation of much of the higher education establishment in the U.S. with such talk?
What is behind the phenomenon of credential inflation? Collins points to the self-interest of college professors and administrators, who are better off with a growing demand for their services. He’s correct. Previously content to educate only the small percentage of the population that really wanted to pursue higher learning after high school, higher education leaders have become astute businessmen, constantly looking for new and bigger markets. They have promoted the notion that almost everyone ought to attend college so they can improve their earning potential. (Sometimes you hear other justifications, but that one’s the clincher.) A tremendous increase in governmental loans and grants made the selling job a lot easier.
Thanks to the “college is for everyone” idea, the U.S. now has a much higher percentage of people working on degrees than any other country. Large numbers of students who are at best indifferent to learning and often hostile to those who would interfere with their lifestyle by requiring them to read and study are enrolled in college simply because they believe that the degree they’re getting (not “earning”) will open up the doors to success. They graduate. Then they encounter the unexpected truth — that employers don’t automatically hire and pay hefty salaries to people whose skills in reading, writing, and thinking are pitiable.
It used to be that if you wanted job training, you signed on at the bottom of the job ladder, and if you wanted to wanted to expand your mind by learning Aristotle, you went to college. We have largely turned that around. If you want job training, head for a college. If you want to learn Aristotle, you’d be better off getting a good set of audiotapes and learning it on your own, since it’s getting harder to find courses on him.
No, Collins and I are not against college education, but we are against overselling it and cheapening it through credential inflation.