The Wall Street Journal published an interesting editorial this past week regarding the market for education credentials.
The long story short, a dean was recently fired at MIT for lying about her credentials (she falsely claimed to have three non-existent degrees)… 28 years after being hired for the job.
While this was fraud in the first-degree, the thing is, she did a great job as a dean, despite lacking the training/credentialing.
The author notes that one of the kinks in the general labor market is the assumed need for a college degree in the first place.
However, he then suggests that degreeism has more to do with the ability for potential employers to indirectly screen for IQ, which is illegal for them to do directly in any form or fashion - so they use universities as a proxy.
If nothing else, this is a perfect example of the distortions regulations can cause in market transactions, the unseen effects of legislation — as the entire educational industry has been turned into something it is really crappy at doing.
See also John Taylor Gatto and Malcolm Gladwell. Note: this also touches on monopolistic licensing, such as practicing law, which Lysander Spooner fought.
Thanks to DJC for the link.