Update: Bryan said it “seems plausible it could work for someone”–which is close to saying impossible, without doing exactly that. Not sure, but plausibly the most positive attitude toward an alternative educational approach.
Bryan Caplan’s The Case Against Education has persuaded me that a majority of the education premium is essentially really costly signaling of ability, conscientiousness and conformity, and that it’s reasonably good at this task since employers are willing to pay that premium.
This led me to consider how else one might certify these qualities in a non-educational/productive way. In Caplan’s book, he argues against the “IQ laundering” argument for education saying that the test tax really isn’t that high and that education is discriminatory as well and clearly employers are allowed to use credentials as hiring criteria. And essentially argues, that the education premium isn’t solely IQ laundering, but also filters for conscientiousness and conformity as well.
But IQ is a big part of the premium. And in the letter of the law, you are allowed to use IQ tests if it’s necessary to your business.
So here’s the pitch: start a professional services firm doing generalist work and hire anyone who scores above a quite high threshold on an IQ test or equivalent (for ease, just limit it to people who score 1600 on the SAT, this way you can brand the firm “1600”) and pay them whatever the current average starting salary of a college graduate is (perhaps even more than this). You’ll quickly filter for smart people who don’t have a college degrees. A large percentage of them will be recent high school graduates, but not all. Promise them the finest education imaginable—lessons from the real world.
In year 1, the work they do will largely be non-client facing, but you can promise clients high quality work at a fraction of the price compared to standard professional services firms. This will prove that they are conscientious enough to do professional quality work. Those who fail will have gotten paid to try and can always go back to the standard education system.
In year 2, give the now experienced staffer a raise to the average starting salary of recent graduate school graduate and put them into client facing scenarios. They’ll continue to learn and will build a network that would make any MBA envious. Their ability to navigate interpersonal situations should certify their ability further, and to a lesser extent conformity to workplace norms.
After year 2, most employees will likely choose to leave, but will have certified their ability and conscientiousness while earning an income rather than paying for education. They will not have certified conformity as much, but I think this trait is in declining demand among elite knowledge workers.
It’s pretty simple. Build a professional services firm, hire solely based on very high IQ, base salary solely on IQ, sell your services at a steep discount from those who are paying massive education premiums for similar talent, and ensure your employees and alumni are considered elite. You’ll have built a parallel certification system that takes advantages of market forces to avoid the pitfalls of other alternatives. It won’t take down the entire education system, but could work at the margin. Most importantly, you’ll have saved the world from wasting some of its smartest peoples’ time and effort.