An alternative way of judging a degree (I'm not just playing Devil's advocate, this is what I believe) is that people who finished college - or worse, have a PhD - are people who do well in artificial, hierarchical environments, where prestige is overwhelmingly more important than knowledge or "getting things done". (You can see a similar mentality with government employees, for example.)

A good exemplification of this is in the Big Bang Theory show, where "Dr." Sheldon is obviously superior to any non-doctor around, no matter how badly adjusted he actually is in the real world. The fact that a lot of people believe that Sheldon is a good model to follow is seriously baffling to me.