What proportion of top-level architects don't have architecture degrees?Today all of them do because it is legally required. My girlfriend is currently attending architecture school and it is beyond useless. She's learned an awful lot about "aura" and "algorithmic design" and precious little about designing buildings for the real world. Architects end up learning everything on the job.
In the 19th century, it was not uncommon for architects to be high school drop outs. The New York Public library, some of the tunnel projects under London, the California Aqueduct, were all designed by drop outs.
The structural integrity of the buildings was very high, and the aesthetics far surpass the creations of modern architects.
To construe it as purely anti-competitive is pretty misleading.
I obviously would not want an untrained surgeon practicing on me. The trouble is that credentialing laws are a highly unstable equilibrium. It requires 8 years of post-secondary schooling to prescribe penicillin, read an x-ray, or set a broken bone. I could be convinced that 2 years of schooling might be necessary. But not 8. The reason it is so high is because of lobbying by the AMA. I'm sure they argue that the requirements are in the public interest. Perhaps they even believe their own PR. But if you talk to doctors about medical school, most of them will tell you that it had little relevance to their actual job.
Perhaps the most notorious example of credentialing is the orthodontist profession. The average orthodontist works 35 hour weeks and makes 350k ( about 40% more than dentists). The reason for this is that number of orthodontists allowed to graduate each year is actually capped at 280. The orthodontist association have even gone after inventors who devise new labor-saving (and thus income-reducing) braces, See the case of Viazis v. American Association of Orthodontists. This is blatantly anti-competitive, and it costs thousands of dollars from the pocket book of every American.
Finally, do you think that teaching citizens about civic culture and American political institutions is a mis-use of public education?
I once worked a bit on capitol hill. The civics class description of American democracy bears little resemblance to the reality. However, these the civics class lies are probably necessary to make a democratic system even marginally functional. My preferred solution then, would be to get rid of electoral democracy.