I disagree that’s the problem, and I don’t think your claim is true. Degrees are still extremely valuable, and income stats alone prove it conclusively. I don’t find your suggestion very interesting, not because colleges are gatekeeping, but for the reason already stated: because most people do not and cannot teach themselves and curate their own educations at a university level, and because even if they did, which they don’t, it still wouldn’t help them get jobs or advanced degrees in today’s workforce. It might be an interesting suggestion if that happened with any statistical significance, but it doesn’t, and isn’t a realistic path for education for society.

Figuring out how to teach kids is exactly what this article is doing. How do you propose to teach kids, when they refuse to put in the work, and reach for AI for everything? Your suggestion to make them use pencils seems naïve/ignorant/obtuse; this article is written by a computer science teacher. You can’t force people to use only pencils for homework (as the article points out), and it would be ridiculous to use pencils for writing computer programs in 2026. That suggestion is a non-starter. FWIW, the impression I’m getting is not that you have any helpful suggestions for education, but that you don’t have experience teaching and don’t understand what’s happening in schools right now.

Who is protecting jobs programs under the guise of something nobler? This seems like a straw man unrelated to your previous comment. I’m getting the feeling you’re anti-education for some reason, maybe have some bone to pick with the university system, is that accurate? Asking kids to teach themselves or forcing them to use pencils are not going to be successful ways to improve education.