This is a straw man. Nobody said memorization is verboten.
A certificate granted for mainly memorization, where no new modes of thinking or doing were involved, is not worth tends of thousands of dollars. If a med school matriculated students who never did practical and had never deliberated treatment modes and tradeoffs, et cetera, yes, it would be close to useless.
And here is your straw man. Nobody said they were worth that much. You haven't demonstrated that a significant portion of any major exhibits these traits.
Four years of a young person's time is worth tens of thousands of dollars. So beyond the direct cost of education, that is the opportunity cost, to the individual and to society. I think that's money well spent for e.g. a proper liberal arts degree. It isn't for a piece of paper pursued for its own end.
This is the basis of your entire point, and you haven't backed it up with anything of substance. You can keep tossing red herrings, but this hasn't been addressed.
I would certainly believe that person. However, saying "this major at this school has low standards" is not the same as saying "a bunch of majors at all schools have low standards and are thus worthless."
> There are reams of low-grade degrees in which the majority of teaching is in memorization, and not mastering new ways to think.
The biggest complaint from anyone I know who studied medicine/pre-med is the sheer amount of memorization involved. Must be a useless field of study.