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Comment by 8f2ab37a-ed6c | Hacker News Reader

Is it possible that the whole thing is explained by incentives?

Getting a four year college degree is a mandatory rite of passage into the middle class these days.

It almost doesn't matter what you do as long as you get the piece of paper and you can move on with your life. Everybody's incentives are aligned: the school will graduate you and make their money, the students will get their degree, and eventually a job, the employers.. well, not sure, but I guess they'll filter for the signal that their candidate is able to complete something long and tedious.

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"I guess they'll filter for the signal that their candidate is able to complete something long and tedious"

That signal is pretty weak, though. Would you rather hire an English major who graduated from one of these two colleges, or a high school graduate with a good SAT score?

Would you rather hire an English major who graduated from one of these two colleges, or a high school graduate with a good SAT score?

Depends on what my incentives are on the hiring end. Many jobs default to requiring a college degree, and hiring someone without one would require a lot of extra work on my end. Also hiring a high school grad over a college grad would involve me putting my reputation on the line by implicitly vouching for them. If the high school kid can't do the job I will get blamed for the bad hire since I broke the procedures put in place to prevent such a thing from happening. I the college graduate sucks at the job, well these things happen, you did what you could.

I should have been more specific about what I meant :)

Your answer is reasonable but, it's entirely about the principal-agent problem.

What if you were the boss, and you were accountable only to yourself and your family?

Realistically, I would weight the two educations as roughly equal and judge on other factors.

If I had to choose between:

A) Someone with a 4-year degree in English, from Pittsburg State (one of the two colleges in that study), and

B) Someone who just finished high school, and got a high SAT score.

Then I'd choose B. (Being a graduate of Pittsburgh State suggests an SAT score in the range 900 to 1200.)

Are we hiring an 18-year-old, or deciding between two similarly aged candidates with those educational backgrounds?

I'm assuming you mean the same age, correct?

No, I'm talking about either:

- an 18-year-old with a good SAT score, or

- a 22-year-old who graduated from Pittsburgh State, after majoring in English

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44072878

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