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It seems worth noting that avoiding the specific problem of 'the economy produces more college graduates than it knows what to do with' is not something anyone has figured out.
In America the existence of a certificate in following basic directions, using the English language, being able to not make problems when working in groups, etc is the function of a bachelor's in psychology, but what else do you suggest fill that role? I will grant that a bachelor's in psychology or communications or English is a very expensive way to grant this certificate. But America isn't cost conscious about anything else in general- or indeed, any other portion of the education system in particular- and there does have to be some way to tell employers 'look I have no experience but I'm literate, understand white collar norms enough not to violate them too bad, can follow directions, communicate, and won't make problems when working in a group'. My first AAQC was about this. And at least for now the economy needs workers who can follow directions, communicate, read and write, use the English language effectively, and can keep drama to a minimum. Maybe chatgpt will change that, but the majority of people whose employment depends on having a 'literate and not a retard' certificate are women so the government will protect their jobs even if it's pointless and stupid- the end goal of western governance is to maximize female LFPR at all costs, after all. The existence of a complicated, expensive, and baroque process to prove you aren't a retard and can read is an inevitability and other countries are even worse. In East Asia there basically aren't any non-fuckups who don't go to college.
I am not sure if college degree provides that certificate anymore. First, universities now tend to produce culture warriors that can endanger you business if they think your corporation is the best platform to promote their political ideas. Additionally I am not sure if even ability to cooperate in a team or command of English language is something necessary to get a degree anymore. I think what you basically have to do now as a business owner is to do your own testing of potential employees including basic tests such as composing some simple email to customer or related to reading comprehension of some corporate memo.
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In bang for buck, I think you could do much the same thing with less cost and less lost opportunities (another cost of college is that you’re keeping your 18-24 year old young adults out of the workforce, which not only means they aren’t earning money for the company, but it effectively means that they don’t start households until later on and thus aren’t buying things and are behind on saving for a house and for eventually having kids), by having the high school diplomas do the same thing. If you’re not reading and doin* maths on grade level, you shouldn’t graduate high school and the reason that college became the “well at least he can read” degree is that high school diplomas stopped being that.
Yes, Motteizean rationalist technocrats can devise a better system, but there doesn't seem to be a better system anywhere in the world. A high school diploma doesn't serve as the entrypoint to white collar work in any society that I know of(although there might be countries where some alternative to a college degree is widely accepted- can you list any? I think the US and Germany accepting a master license in the trades as equivalent to a bachelor's degree is the closest thing that exists- and that's more of a government convention than a real thing).
This isn't like low-carbon electrical grids where someone has gone and done it. It's the closest thing to an iron law of industrialized societies(that is, those needing a lot of scribes- people who can read, write, follow directions in not-retarded ways, act in all the ways white collar workers are expected to, etc but who don't have specific skills) that education of minors gets inflated in pointless rigor that gets coupled with grade inflation because society thinks it's just that important. Basically all non-fuckups in East Asian countries are shoved into a college admissions rat race, the percentage of German high school students in Gymnasia as opposed to Hauptschulen keeps rising, etc. This isn't just a democracy thing; China isn't one, and countries with vastly different political cultures keep doing it. And the scribal class is mostly women so prevailing ideology insists it needs to be feted and expanded, but that isn't the sole factor- Iran is not a very feminist place but it does the same thing with pushing more education than really needed.
At least in Iran's case, they have the excuses of "semi-isolated nation that has been building a nuclear program for decades" and "ran by an Islamic theocracy, which requires rigorous study of religious text."
That being said, I agree that it's...weird how much societies around the world have commoditized(?) education.
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There is at least one foreign country that has a better system in this respect: the past. And I don't mean pre-industrialization either. Pre-GI bill, certainly.
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A high school diploma, or better yet, a certificate of graduation from the eighth grade. This would require reversing much of the educational "progress" made in the last 100 years, of course.
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