Well, three things. First, my career was in Federal service, not the corporate world, and the distortions of job-vacancy requirements I mentioned were linked to the bureaucracy, not necessarily corporate requirements. Second, in both the corporate world and government bureaucracies, people also get jobs purely from nepotism, cronyism, or the simple fact that they know someone with power and influence. Third, the number of scandals and cases of incompetence that occur even in private industry alone show that the policy of only hiring people with sheepskins is not the best one. Since this is an auto-forum and an auto-thread, let's use a classic auto-related case. Ford Motor Company, for many decades, was a prime example of what can happen when either there is too family-nepotism in who runs things and makes decisions, or when too much emphasis is put on hiring super-educated people, such as when Ford hired Robert McNamara and a group of what came to be called the "Whiz Kids", who were so-called scholarly "experts" in engineering, marketing, and management. They made a number of classic decisions which got the company into serious trouble later.

 

Respectfully, i'd say you're really limiting yourself. Plus a regular 4 year degree in most subjects does not seem to prepare hardly anyone to be more prepared for real work unless your company somehow makes money playing beer pong.

 

50% of ppl go to college to have fun or decide what they want to do for the rest of their life. 40% because their parents force them. 10% because they actually have a plan.

The ppl hired by corporations without college degrees are not 18yr old kids. They have work experience of some sort and maybe had great interview etc. Ppl had family situations or other circumstances where college was either not an option or cost prohibitive.

I would agree that its a lot easier to secure a job with a 4yr degree, it is a much more difficult and longer road working your way up the corporate ladder without one but it’s definitely possible and has been done on a regular basis.

 

Getting back to topic, folks (we all drifted way off with job-details), here's a good article on the subject of vehicle prices now vs. then.

https://reason.com/2018/11/28/cars-h...h-and-college/

 

I totally agree! So you know my business is a strange setup, we sell houses through a large brokerage where we're a team, and we manage property through our own entity. I have zero problem hiring people without a college degree, what I'm referring to is the hiring practices of the large brokerage where I have no control.

Like I said to Bit, you're preaching to the choir here. I firmly believe that reliance simply on a college degree when hiring is poor practice.

Like you saiid people hired by corporations without college degrees are not 18 year old kids. Thats the point, what do those kids do to get experience to where they have a shot at being hired by a corporation without going to college?

The other issue is HR hiring managers have requirements they have to go by and often don't have the leeway to hire someone without a college degree even if they really love the person. With modern online resume and application submission, people without college degrees don't even get called in for an interview.

 

College is a screening tool for employers. It's assumed if you went to college, you are probably, on average, smarter than someone who didn't. It's also assumed that if you went to a top school, you are smarter than someone who went to a lower tier school. Not all jobs require this but the job prestige dictates where the recruiters go. Investment banks only recruit at the top 10 schools, while corporations typically go to a top local school. In the end, the cream always rises to the top so if you are smart, it won't matter in the end but college does make life a lot easier at the beginning.