"People should learn things as they want, and not be required to meet arbitrary standards and degrees to obtain societal benefits."

Then don't ask me to pay for you to do so. Check some books out of the library.

People are paying a lot of money to universities in exchange get a better life for themselves. If it doesn't improve their skills in any measurable way, we should try something else.

thats ok. we are in a transitional phase. Most of what you learn in college goes to waste anyway.

College proves that you can start something and finish it. Like you can do engineering, but even graduates of MIT need years in industry to learn the actual skills needed for their jobs.

If the goal of college is just to prove you can prove that you can do start something and finish it, we can find a lot cheaper ways of doing that. You can even get a job that doesn't require college to prove that.

Measurement is a huge value add. It's proof to employers that you know the basics. It's something that you can use to get a job. Learning for the sake of learning is great and all but you also have to put food on the table.

how many employers give job offers based on GPA?

GPA or any other grades is bad proxy for actual ability and employability.

Humans are good at studying for evaluations and measurements. But colleges that teach for that are a waste of time.

In the industrial manufacturing based economy people could get good jobs without basic undergraduate 'skills'. Now in the knowledge economy, they can't.

yes, and that's why they should go to college and learn those skills.

It used to be that community college was the place to go if you lacked the credentials to go straight into a 'real' college now that I think about it. Is this not the case any more?

lack the credentials or money to pay.

'real' colleges offer better networking, but often great teachers can be found in community colleges, where profs are not selected primarily for research.

A minority of students learn better in competitive environments. Self motivated students learn better in constructive non competitive environments which are more like apprenticeships than competition for grades.