This is an ABSOLUTELY ingenious idea!!! And overdue! Four-year degrees are ridiculous for most of life's and work's requirments! The professionals (accounting, medical, and legal fields) might want their educational requirements be a mandatory degree of so many years.

Further, what's up with someone having to have so many credit hours of "gen ed" requirements? What was high school? And, if we need to carry this idea into college, what about the rest of the world that isn't getting the required "gen ed" training they obviously need to make them more "well-rounded?" If the education system was doing it's job, by the time you get into college you should JUST have to study the field of study in which you are aiming to be employed. "Gen ed" is an indirect and ridiculous way of saying we need to employ professors in areas of study that are obviously not needed in today's world! Further, it's a way for colleges/universities to charge us an amazing amount of money for something that we obviously don't care anything about!

I love music, history, politics, and science. And while I wish that the world knew more about ALL those things, I'm not wishing to enforce MY ideals of what should and shouldn't be known, especially when people in yesteryear created way more out of way less education. We won two World Wars with less than 5% of the population being educated beyond high school - don't tell me we "need" all that extra education. Up to the 1990's, no one "needed" a degree for most professions. That all changed, and fast! With way too little "real" justification for the requirements. This all centers around businesses thinking they're going to be getting "better" employees if they're educated! By the way, more educated does not necessarily mean smarter! Being smart and beind educated are two distinctly different things, and shouldn't be confused! I wish people who owned businesses would value ACTUAL (naturally smart person, one who can learn just about anything) benefit versus PERCEIVED (educated person) benefit! If education should teach us anything, it's that being educated isn't "all that!"

Just still,

Thank you for your comment. I could not agree more.

-Matt

being still i like you

Equivalency tests:

Just a quick summary of my background. I spent 20 years as a design engineer WITHOUT a college degree. I was sick and tired of hearing managers tell me I wasn't qualified to be promoted without a degree, not in those words but that's what they meant. So, I got one - a BS in Information Technology. That didn't seem to impress anyone. SO, I got an MBA at a respected university. That also didn't make much difference. NOW, I'm doing an MS program at a higher ranked school. The managers I currently work for couldn't care less about my schooling. HOWEVER, I get a LOT of notice and interest from other firms now. If I can't advance at my current firm I'll go elsewhere eventually.

The reason for my wordy background is that I've put in a LOT of long hours to get my degrees. An executive recruiter told me one thing that has stuck with me for years. He said "Consider you're the hiring manager and that you've had to put in years of effort to get your degree(s). Now, you have a stack of resumes in front of you. Are you going to pick someone who took the easy method and just passed some exam or are you going to select the dedicated person who went through all of the same effort as you?"

Pesky schooling? I learn and have learned a great deal from my classes. Maybe not all of it is applicable to what I'm currently doing at work BUT I still benefit from it.