Women as doctorates

 Women as doctorates

10-18-26

 Going back as far as WW2, draftees who had a college degree were made officers; those who didn't have degrees were made private.

After the war, all of the grunts who saw this happening (as well as the college educated getting the best jobs post war) raised their kids with the belief that a college degree with the key to opening most jobs (and, for a while, it was).

Then college was democratized. People were allowed to take on debt to fund their education, which means that college was no longer a place for only the rich and highest of classes.

At first it worked, because only a few were taking on the risk of debt for college (or only a few could get the loans in the first place). But as more and more people got into college (and as standards were lowered to keep the money rolling in), college stopped being about the smartest people moving up, but about a filter for those who had the means to attend in the first place.

As far as the results, it goes back to my belief that the widespread distribution of unearned status symbols not only degrades both the recently issued symbols, but those of the past.

So, if you gain status by being the first on your block to own a Cadillac, you gain less status if you buy one when most of your neighbors have one; and eventually you loses status if you're the only person on your block which DOESN'T have one.

In this case, by flooding the world with people who are degreed by luck or circumstances instead of strictly by talent, you call into question everyone else who has graduated from the same university. (this is also what brings forth the idea/question brought on recently about seeing a DEI pilot of an airplane)