Here is a story on Inside Higher Ed that’s worth pondering. An increasing number of students are being offered jobs while they’re still in college — what the higher ed folks call “job outs.”
The educationists worry about this, saying that it prevents students from reaching their long-term goals.
To me, it looks like the market’s judgment on the lengthy credentialing process that colleges and universities want to engage in. When businesses find that people are employment-ready after completing less than the full number of courses to earn a degree, that’s making more efficient use of human resources. For the higher ed establishment to complain that business hiring of students “cuts into the supply of highly trained workers” is too much. What the students (former students, now employees) will learn on the job is probably of much greater value than what they’d get taking more courses.
