>Measure the proportion of graduates who pursue and are accepted into advanced degree programs. (adjusted for field of study so acceptance into medical school > masters in art history)
The only reason, however, that medical school is more competitive than an art history masters (to be fair, most paid masters programs aren't super competitive) is because the medical board has set up the system of accreditation to limit the number of practising doctors in the US in order to artificially inflate the salaries of doctors. The UK, for instance, has the opposite problem, where becoming a doctor is much easier, but for that very reason their pay is relatively low and the job is increasingly undesirable (not to mention cuts to the NHS).
This is all to say that, in just this instance, the author falls prey to precisely the same mystification that he is criticizing, by seeing something as "better" just because its more exclusive.