It's no big deal at better places. If you don't get a degree, you can spend less time learning at least as much relevant stuff.
Because "big companies with dumb management" hire a lot of people and pay them well?
Most people aren't fortunate enough to have their dream job quite yet and their number one priority for work is just getting the bills paid.
BTW if you're going to take semi-lame jobs, you only have to get hired a few times in your life. Optimizing the job search part isn't a great use of time -- even if no college doubles your lifetime job search time, going to college would still be a loss in that respect.
Some people are incredibly driven towards a particular set of goals, but the majority of people just sorta drift through life figuring things out as they go.
And college is extraordinarily boring if you aren't already strongly interested in what you're studying. To get a good value out of college at minimum you need some initiative, and some understanding of what you want to get out of it. You need goals or you will just drift through completely pointlessly -- as many people do.
Of course one can try a variety of things at college. But one can do that outside of college too. Shrug.
I'd agree that if a kid leaves school and doesn't know what he wants to do then going to university may not be the best option at all. Taking a few years off to do something else is a great idea and shouldn't be stigmatized as much as it is.
Heck, if you really want to shake up the education industry then perhaps it should be compulsory: have a university that won't let you in until you demonstrate that you've spent eighteen months in the workforce doing something impressive.
There are so many people making incredible contributions to humanity without college degrees, and so many people simply fretting away their lives in cubicles making slightly more money than they would have without a degree.
"But federal statistics show that just 36 percent of full-time students starting college in 2001 earned a four-year degree within that allotted time. Even with an extra two years to finish, that group's graduation rate increased only to 57 percent."
Technical education has a much more certain payoff. Bookkeeping, welding, plumbing, nursing, all are possible with 2 year degrees and are ways to get a good job and a good career.
A 2 year nursing degree is a relatively fast way to get into a good income and relatively flexible schedule, allowing further study.
And economists are backing up the 'Don't even waste the money, just go straight vocational' approach.
None of this is good.
Academia is insular and has adopted the extremely broad mandate of "making better citizens" which has resulted in a lot of degree programs that are utterly useless. There was a post on HN just a few days ago from someone who was about to get a CS degree and who felt they had no idea how to actually program.
That's the problem and what this article describes is a trend in which those useless degrees are losing favor while more specialized education gains it.
Perhaps, though academia has been specialising in the teaching of mostly-useless knowledge since at least the days of ancient Rome, so it's not likely to be a transient phenomenon.