Poisonously, kids have become commoditized and all that distinguishes them are 'Schools and Grades'. 'Schools and Grades' are really the product here. Kids are the sellers. Companies are the buyers.
Until companies stop valuing kids solely by their 'School and Grade', this cycle will continue.
To make this an interesting conversation, how DO companies hire great people without relying on their 'School and Grades'? Are 'Schools and Grades' really the best indicator for worker performance?
In essence what is happening here is that rich parents/kids (or just very heavily indebted ones) are buying their degrees now, which have basically become shitcoins.
X% of employers are still believing the high worth of these shitcoin degrees, and for some reason, the bubble has yet to explode.
It's like, there's no difference in skill between buying bitcoin early vs a valueless coin. But, there is a massive difference in perceived wealth.
Agree. However, the difference is, once these 'shitcoins' get "bought" initially by the Goldman Sachs, Googles, and Mckinseys, the college grads then become truly valuable. So, now, we have this reinforcement problem, where the college grads get to work at the top firms for a few years because of their degree, and now, they are hot on the job market. And then, we further propagate the correlation between good degrees and good jobs.
I totally have seen this happen first hand as well. I would say there is a proportion of "shitcoin degree-holders who turn out to be valuable workers" and "shitcoin degree-holders who turn out to be costly but we keep them around anyway".
I think the real problem here is that investment capital (i.e money) is still so centralized in the hands of the fortune 500 and some investment banks. Most "run-of-the-mill" startups won't be differentiated by uniqueness of idea or ability to execute-- they'll just be differentiated by how much money they're given and how many rich dudes are in their network.
I really dream of the day that 10 high school graduates from Detroit can form a company and bootstrap their way to 100,000 users with a net profit of $1,000,000 a year.
Until companies stop valuing kids solely by their 'School and Grade', this cycle will continue.
To make this an interesting conversation, how DO companies hire great people without relying on their 'School and Grades'? Are 'Schools and Grades' really the best indicator for worker performance?