Chapter three of Dark Ages Ahead by Jane Jacobs takes up the debate about “real” education vs mere “credentialing” where the author strongly argues that education no longer exists in the same form as it did before due to society's decision to put more value into credentials. Most people think of credentials as the end result, such as getting a degree and not the “real education” that led them to that degree. From Jacobs’s view, the trend of credentialing is noticeable through the difference in the student-professor ratio, post-secondary institutes becoming businesses, and education levels determining what job an individual qualifies for.
Foremost, there is a decrease in the quality of the education that post-secondary institutes offer given …show more content…
This problem has gotten worse to the point that “The credential is not a passport to a job...It is more basic and necessary: a passport to consideration for a job" (Jacobs 45) which leads to people lying about their credentials on their resume because all human resources are looking for is the degree. This is disastrous in the long term. There is a flaw in credentialing: everyone has different levels of knowledge than others. That is unknown to human resources, so if they continue to rely on credentials alone, the society may or may not prosper because credentialing does not equate to knowledge. How will society put the importance back into education if even the most well informed applicants aren’t even considered? It encourages the madness of credentialing. Furthermore, this gives universities even more power, as in some form universities truly control who gets what job. These public institutions have become the gateway to adulthood. There are some degrees that honestly do not need a degree for one to be considered an expert in that field but those degrees exist so that a person can be differentiated. Does a photographer need a degree or diploma to indicate whether they are capable of producing breathtaking images? This continues to show that credentialing became more important since society looks at education level and not the
Foremost, there is a decrease in the quality of the education that post-secondary institutes offer given …show more content…
This problem has gotten worse to the point that “The credential is not a passport to a job...It is more basic and necessary: a passport to consideration for a job" (Jacobs 45) which leads to people lying about their credentials on their resume because all human resources are looking for is the degree. This is disastrous in the long term. There is a flaw in credentialing: everyone has different levels of knowledge than others. That is unknown to human resources, so if they continue to rely on credentials alone, the society may or may not prosper because credentialing does not equate to knowledge. How will society put the importance back into education if even the most well informed applicants aren’t even considered? It encourages the madness of credentialing. Furthermore, this gives universities even more power, as in some form universities truly control who gets what job. These public institutions have become the gateway to adulthood. There are some degrees that honestly do not need a degree for one to be considered an expert in that field but those degrees exist so that a person can be differentiated. Does a photographer need a degree or diploma to indicate whether they are capable of producing breathtaking images? This continues to show that credentialing became more important since society looks at education level and not the