Education, Credentials, and Skills

I talk a lot about college, the higher ed bubble, autodidacticism, blue collar skills, and what have you. In my discussions with others, I notice there is some slippage in the terms we use. I will now try and clarify these terms.

Education
This is what you actually know. It doesn't matter where it came from. Knowing the earth is round is no less true or important because you learned it in high school, from a book, a friend, or Harvard University. This applies to all facts. Thanks to the free market, public libraries, and the internet, education today is virtually unlimited.

Credentials
A credential is merely a document that attests you have education or a skill. A driver's license is a credential. So is a college degree.

Skills
A skill is simply something you are able to do at a certain level of proficiency. This could be laying bricks or playing the guitar. Skills are acquired through practice.

This is where these terms get slippery. When a politician says that he wants everyone to get an education, he isn't talking about a real education. He is talking about a credential. In this case, it is usually the bachelor's degree. But as we know, anyone and everyone has access to education. Right now, if I wanted to learn computer programming, I am only a mouse click away from what I need to know.

I had a friend who was a college dropout. He said he always wanted to go back and complete his education. But no one ever completes their education. Education is constant and forever. He wanted to get his credential.

The credential has value if it means something. You can just establish a government diploma mill and achieve what the politician wants. But no one will recognize the credential. OTOH, I know lots of drop outs who do just fine because they have a skill set. The credential is just like a dollar bill--real or counterfeit.

The market demand is not for education or credentials. It is for skills. They may be required by law to demand a credential like a CDL, a medical license, or what have you. But they want the skill since it is the skill that produces the results and not the credential. Having a credentialed and educated citizenry is fine for politics and civic engagement but is worthless in terms of free market endeavors. If you want to make money, you have to learn some skills.

The reason I stress blue collar occupations and the like is because those are skilled professions. There is a certain amount of knowledge that goes along with those skills. Electricians need to know Ohm's law. But it doesn't take four years of classroom instruction to learn Ohm's law. Most electricians learn it through apprenticeship.

The people being turned out of schools today have virtually no skills. Aside from being able to read, write, and do some math, the skill set is limited. This is why we laugh at liberal arts majors for wasting all that money and four years of their lives. But those same people laugh at someone who enrolls in diesel mechanics school. This is because everything is valued in terms of money and social status. This is why a history degree from Harvard trumps a nursing degree from State U. even though the nurse has more marketable skills and is in greater demand than the Harvard history major. If it all seems like bullshit, you would be correct.

What the world needs is a credentialing authority that is bona fide. We don't need more schools, scholarships, student loans, and all that. We just need the credential that means something and is universally recognized. This would end the divide between the haves and the have-nots. It would end the higher ed bubble. And it would be a boon to private business as they would know what they were getting. Somewhere, some clever entrepreneur is going to figure this out and make it happen.

Posted in: