I don't think a degree does these things. Education does, but a degree these days is not much of a metric for one's education.
50 years ago a computer was still potentially someone that did a math calculation.
25 years ago personal computers were just barely a thing.
If you can understand how a computer works, and build one and write programs for it in 12 years, then you probably don't have need of any further need of education.
25 years ago was 1994. You're about 10 or 15 years off, kiddo :-) By 1995, PC's were in pretty much every office in the US. Most high schools had had them for a decade (I went to a small town midwest HS that valued football above all else... and we got our PC lab somewhat behind the better HS's in 1983). Around 20mil to 40mil PC's were sold every year during the 1990's in the US alone. From 1989 to 1994, 150mil PC's were sold in the US. I have friends now who have kids who are in university who will be third generation programmers. Digital computers themselves will be a century old in just one more generation (ENIAC came online in 1946, the 100th anniversary is just 27 years from now).
(I'm just being an old curmudgeon here, don't take it too seriously :-)
In 1994 an estimated 31% of us homes had a computer, and 6% of homes went online. But even here, it’s much easier to count people going online than homes with a computer.
Yeah - servers had been around in one form or another since the 60's and even in the 90's not everyone had an office computer. Maybe if you were...again...an engineer or scientist.
We don't have people who are highly educated in useful things despite 16+ years of school.
The 'Everyone needs to get a degree' mentality is really just part of a long term trend:
100 years ago 6 years of schooling was enough to get some generic 'good job'.
50 years ago 10 years of schooling was enough to get some generic 'good job'.
25 years ago 12 years of schooling was enough to get some generic 'good job'.
In another 25 years, 12 years of schooling will not be enough to get some generic 'good job'.
> If everyone has a degree, it offers no advantage.
A degree isn't just a way to give someone an advantage in a zero-sum game - it actually changes the way people think and makes them proficient at different types of work.