I wonder if we are seeing a blow-back against this cult. In high school, I remember that it wasn't "cool" to really excel academically -- but part of that was just a reaction to the fact that academic excellence involves a bunch of bullshit, like being good at test-taking, memorizing irrelevant facts that adults decided were important, etc.

Yes, I was a goody-two-shoes who enjoyed getting gold stars from adults. But, my parents also motivated me with sermons threatening the hell of flipping burgers all my life if I didn't knock it out of the park. It's fucked up to put that much pressure on kids. Some people just don't have the ability, so we can't pretend that STEM degrees are a panacea. I happened to like science & be good at it, but I've taught/tutored enough to know that it's not for everyone.

Much of the value of a degree is simply as a marker, not as value-added by the process of getting the degree. We're seeing an expansion in the number of roles that require degrees, but this may be just as much a consequence of the declining selectivity of a degree, not that the average job is increasingly requiring workers with higher skill levels. At some point, this becomes detrimental to the overall productivity of society, and for individuals.

It's unfortunate that talking about equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity has become a third rail in (neo)liberal circles.

>we have a talent deficit in our teaching core. The only way to fix that problem is to make the profession more attractive.

Another no-brainer that we should really work on!