In the article, Death by Degrees, the N+1 editors remind
us that credentials do not always bring benefits to education. Social, economic,
and political force will concentrate onto a few people if we still effectuate
the pay-to-play education system. The article also criticizes the system that
demands expensive, time-consuming higher education in
order to access professional and political life.
At the beginning of
the article, the N+ 1 editors told a story about the education system of
Chinese empire. If someone wanted to a politician, he had to pass the exam
which required the memorization of 400,000 Chinese words. In order to pass it, students
had to hire an expensive tutor. That meant that poor people hardly ever had a chance
to pass the exam. As time went on, more and more passed the first round. Soon,
there were more degree-holders than there were positions. So the emperor
decided to make the exam harder. Only 0.16 percent candidates passed all three
exams to get a bureaucratic job. They were all “elite”. And “elite” was defined by only three
exams.
Back to the present, in
education there still exists a thing called “elite”. It is the word describing
students who enroll in Ivy League colleges. To be an elite student, one has to
pay a lot of money and spend much time studying. A student must sacrifice to
pay attention to his studying. When successful, that student wishes to become a
one-percent rule creator. Is it fair enough when those who can calculate faster
are the bosses? The educational system is turning into a
credentialed pay-to-play stratified feudal system. Because
most students are interested in getting high-paying jobs, employers only choose
some who graduated from top-tier colleges. What happens nowadays is similar to
feudal China. Only when students are in the best colleges will they have more
chances to get high-paying jobs. It creates a race to get more accreditations. Then
the credentials will be devalued.
What would happen if I
did not go to college? I imagine how difficult my life would be if it really
happened. I could not get a high position in company (unless I establish it). I
cannot become involved in political systems because politicians never hire people
who have never met an undergraduate program before. If something can replace
credentialing, it is on the job experience. Credentials are very important to
evaluate the ability to work, but if people are evaluated a person by credentials,
the difference between poor and rich people will widen.
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