I'd go further and say that among the intellectual elite, having a degree is more based on whether or not your interests overlap with things that colleges have to offer than some default for very smart people. It is not the default now.
I think it's also because there are now lots of colleges in the US that have almost no minimum academic requirements to get into and because of this, they also need to water-down the curriculum so they don't have high failure rates.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 42.6 ms ] thread1939 was a radically different world and country from 2024.
In 1939, most Universities were there for the elite and the exceptional.
In 2024, most Universities are "High School 2: Away from Home".
The article basically says as much, but the headline really smells like it's trying to make the "people are getting dumber" case.
It's from Big Think, so it's likely clickbait.
There's so much clickbait on HN lately that I've started checking the domain name before clicking through.
It seems like many people have a similar wish.