Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

I'm not sure these are completely separable problems. If there were easy ways to quantify and communicate (at scale) most non-technical skills, then I suspect fewer students would graduate without *actual skills*. Also, my robes *are* beautiful, trust me.

Most real abilities are evaluated through portfolios and confirmed via references; this is how the economy manages to handle the churning of experienced labor. In reality, this is also how hiring works for inexperienced grads seeking top-tier gigs, but we don't tell the kids that

The truth is that if you're completely incapable of demonstrating a skill, you don't have it. Employers don't actually demand evaluations that can produce numeral rankings to place humans at some discrete position on a normal distribution. They just need demonstrated ability.

More importantly: when hiring at entry level, they don't expect someone who can do the job. They expect someone who is smart, conscientious, and dedicated. An IQ test + a proven willingness to do something as tedious as Bible-copying + a pile of debt would do nicely.

This is an extremely good argument. But doesn't it weigh against the value of credentialing *actual skills* at entry-level? A university degree is an effective credential for this at very low information cost to employers.

Actual skills = immediate productive capacity. Very few young people have developed any skills, and the ones that have usually can't communicate them in a way that employers respect (e.g. "wrote extremely popular fanfiction" or "built notorious Minecraft bot")

So your core argument is that at entry level, there is very little actual skill to credential so economy-scale pre-portfolio credentials can only be ranked according to how efficiently they capture IQ, conscientiousness, and diligence (and universities rank badly on that metric)?

1. (Most) high schools & (most) college utilize ineffective teaching methods, but high marks demonstrate conscientiousness & compliant behavior. 2. The SAT is essentially an IQ test. 3. Getting into a good college signals for IQ, finishing demonstrates conscientiousness. (cont)