They already don't certify competence.

Which is why employers see undergrad has a filter and not adding value. They either don’t hire or even interview without experience or they look to your internships and accomplishments as a more significant qualification

Assuming everyone is not constantly cheating and the coursework is somewhat relevant and rigorous, surely they signal a higher probability of at least awareness of the subject matter or ability to learn something.

You're 0-2 on those assumptions, though.

Seriously. Even assuming those things--I would say the program I went through was very relevant and I don't think cheating happened very often. It was a really small program and everybody got to know everyone else. So while I can't say for certain, I never saw cheating amongst my friends, nor was ever approached to assist in cheating (though I was frequently asked for help in studying).

The problem is, I knew some of the guys who graduated, with extremely low GPAs, who didn't cheat, have the same degree as me, exited with the same student loan debt as me, and can't code their way out of a wet paper bag. I've ran into some of them working retail jobs back in my home town.

It's a fucking travesty. They had to be saddled with a student loan debt load they would have no chance of paying back. I only paid mine back so early because of a lucky break on an insurance claim. I'd still be paying on them, 20 years later, if I hadn't lost everything I owned in a flood.

Universties talk about how they don't want to be seen as vocational training facilities. Well, they need to admit the reality. Primary education is not preparing people for the work force. We give people a free education for 13 years, and if they want to have economic opportunity, they want to do something more than just manual labor, we can't give them another 2 to 4 years? It's bullshit.

It's preparing them just as well as primary education + college. It's just that college degrees were more meaningful back when the old people running most companies got them, and employers need a weed out, so we still use it.

> though I was frequently asked for help in studying

Your type of social group is not the one that this behavior happens in.

I'm saying, I knew all the other students in the computer science program on a first name basis. Most of us even partied together. There were really only about 20 or 30 of us. We all knew what each of us were really capable of, and I didn't see anyone have any unexplainable wins in tests or assignments. The people who were failing just transferred to a different program.

I have not been in the education system for 15 years, but I would hope it is true for at least the high end schools in the hard sciences.