I have been arguing for many years that one of the unintended consequences of the federal government’s intrusion into higher education by the decision to subsidize attendance through easy money is that degrees have become debased. Just as the overproduction of money will lead to the debasement of the monetary unit, so too with the overproduction of college degrees. Trying to make sure everyone can get one means that their value will decline.

I recently came across an excellent paper demonstrating that point in another country — Australia.

Author Steven Schwartz writes, “Creeping credentialism is ubiquitous in developed countries. Failing by Degrees, a widely cited Harvard Business School report, notes that 61% of American employers admit rejecting applicants who possess the required skills and experience simply because they do not have a degree. The report highlights the unfairness of degree inflation with a startling example: 67 per cent of job listings for the position of ‘production supervisor’ require university degrees, but only 16 per cent of people currently working in this role attended a university.[16] Are the production supervisors currently working without degrees incompetent? Of course not. Employers are using degrees as an inexpensive way to screen job applicants, even though the credentials they demand have no connection to the position’s duties.”

Subsidizing college attendance was a gigantic blunder that has led to a vast overexpansion of the higher-education sector and a concomitant decline in academic standards. More resources sucked in and less value coming out.

Read the Schwartz paper in full.