The Discrimination We Don't Talk About

Discrimination is an ugly word. People have rightly been angered when barred from social and recreational activities for the color of their skin, their age, their sex, or who they choose to have sex with. No more painful, but far more damaging is discrimination that bars individuals from jobs they need to provide for themselves and their families.

Almost everyone agrees that discrimination is wrong. Discrimination is not only wrong, it is very bad business. Remember that bumper sticker: "The best man for the job…is a woman"? That's not necessarily true, but when it is, the business that chooses the man over the more qualified woman is making a costly mistake.

None of the above is controversial; it's what just about everyone believes. But there is a particularly costly form of discrimination that is not just accepted, but is very strongly promoted by government, by industry, by human resource departments, by parents, and by politicians.

Remember what the Wizard of Oz told the Scarecrow. To paraphrase, he pointed out that many influential men were no smarter than the Scarecrow but they had what the Scarecrow did not—a diploma. Everywhere we hear the same story. If you want a good life, you must have a college degree. Whatever the cost, you must have a diploma. It may take years out of your life. It may leave you weighed down with 30 years of debt. Without the diploma, you are faced with a lifetime of McJobs, finally ending up as a Wal-Mart greeter with a supplementary income of food stamps and, if you are old enough, a pittance from Social Security.

Much of this is true. Employers look for diplomas on resumes and applications. Some even check to make sure the claim of a diploma is valid. And we have all heard the oft-told tale of successful business people who do a fine job and are praised by their colleagues and superiors until, years later, fraudulent educational claims are found on their original application.

The result of course, is the destruction of that person's career. Not only are they summarily discharged, but no one is likely to hire them for a similar position again.

Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and became an American success story. If he had dropped out for financial reasons and looked for a job would it have been smart to reject him and hire someone who managed to graduate?

What happened to the self-educated and self-made individual? Wasn't that an image that Americans were proud of? Andrew Carnegie came to America as a young boy and started on the road to success by working as an employee in American industry. Were the industrialists that gave him his chance fools for hiring and promoting him in preference to college-educated applicants.

There are countless examples. By today's standards, Ernest Hemingway would not be qualified to teach creative writing in an American high school. Neither would Samuel Clemens who said that he never let schooling interfere with his education.

Does all this mean that college is bad? Not at all. The benefits of living and learning in an environment where people are excited about knowledge and ideas are enormous. The problem is that we have changed our ideas about what universities are for. Instead of focusing on the learning experience, we focus on the acquisition of credentials. The outside world responds to that shift in emphasis by judging us not by our knowledge and ability, but about the credentials we present.

So we convince the youth of America that they must somehow acquire a document at great expense and with considerable effort before they can do worthwhile work for others. Under this system, Andrew Carnegie would have been well advised to remain in Scotland.

Even if you want to live the academic life, years of study and a lifetime of debt is no guarantee. Do the math. Every PhD candidate must have an advisor who has previously gone through the process. If every PhD advisor had only one or two advisees who went on to earn their own PhD, we could think of it as a process of training replacements. But if an advisor works with many more  candidates, how can there conceivably be academic positions for all of them?

The same applies at lower levels. If only a third of the jobs in America require an academic degree, how can we claim that most young people should go on to college? This mathematical absurdity is making its presence known as more and more college graduates are waiting tables or parking cars. College degrees may be acting as a filter for human resource departments. If you have a lot of applicants for a janitorial position, fill the position with a college graduate.

But many highly educated people, pushed into the job market by the current recession,  have experienced rejection for over qualification. Sometimes you just can't win for losing.