The 10 years and many loans it took to get through bachelor's and PhD were the best and most important investment I made in myself to get out of the factories and warehouses and into an office with great pay, and oh incidentally an amazing job.
Moreover it's painfully easy to exploit your way through especially if you're already rich. Just go doctor shopping with Mommy so you can get a 504 and accomodations and stimulant medications.
If it selected for adaptation the curriculum would be different, things like figuring out the area of a circle using given materials, not abstract shit. If it selected for intelligence there would br a huge battery of exceptions, handicaps for the working class kids, because they have to put in way more effort than the kids living with their parents who are unemployed, likewise with non-traditionals.
I cannot fathom a successful professional that does not balance 'I must innovate the sysyem even if it hurts me' against 'I will work within this system for my own personal benefit by providing exactly what is requested of me'
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/504faq.html
Is this being abused?
- Rich people can painfully easily exploit something to make their ROI much higher
- That something can be an immensely valuable investment for the non-rich
> a certain amount of wading-through-the-bullwhip tenacity (useless but mandatory curriculum -> non-questioning serf mentality)
And I think a lot of people (though not me and maybe not you) would find that that is a good description of attributes employers would like. And for many people the point of a college degree is appealing to employers rather than proving oneself to be intelligent.
While I see your point - a whole lot of people do have salary increases over a 10 year span - a whole lot of jobs people want require "X piece of paper for Y years of experience" and you cannot get that experience to begin with without either 1) the piece of paper or 2) knowing someone.
bls.gov tells a more complete story, in that machine operators make significantly less and job openings grow at a significantly lower rate than software, aerospace, robotics, and AI specialists, many of which require a degree, (and the siccessful outliers are not worth pushing as a good model for the 90%)
I can't say there wasn't a different, even a better road to some measure of success and an enjoyable career, but I can say this path was a miracle of positive life changes for me and every penny of debt I pay back to the fed is absolutely a victory lap.