Barbara Ehrenreich is a socialist whose writings are usually as dense as mud. She has, however, stumbled upon the truth here, with a piece in The Nation contending that higher education is an overpriced gatekeeper for the labor force. What got her hackles up was the firing of Marilee Jones from MIT. “If she had done a miserable job as dean, MIT might have been more forgiving, but her very success has to be threatening to an institution of higher learning: What good are educational credentials anyway?”

I don’t entirely agree with Ehrenreich, though. When she gets around to discussing the reasons for the credential mania among employers, she says, “My theory is that employers prefer college grads because they see a college degree chiefly as a mark of one’s ability to obey and conform.” Nope. There are many obedient conformists among those who don’t have college degrees, and many disobedient nonconformists among those with them. The reason why employers require a college degree for jobs that don’t really require any academic aptitude or knowledge is that the college diploma signals a presumably higher level of trainability. The college degree requirement is actually a vote of no confidence in our K-12 system.