Today's NYT has a debate on: should college be for everyone?
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/01/should-college-be-for-everyone/?ref=opinion

I know there's been much discussion on this forum about this issue. A lot of the debate on the NYT revolves around money and access to higher education.

My take on money and access aspect to this debate is that we're sitting on a global, gigantic iceberg with the open source movement and self-education. Already MIT, Yale, Carnegie, and other higher institutions (http://oedb.org/) are making courseware freely available and accessible to all. Non-profits, such as the Saylor Foundation (http://www.saylor.org/) are doing so as well.

This is a global phenomenon and will change the way we view higher education in the future. If such courseware is already freely available and accessible, then it enables millions, if not billions, of people to self-direct their learning.

Education is about self-empowerment. Employers already hire candidates with a particular degree in many cases. Many employers today are looking to interns, volunteers, or hire a candidate without a particular degree because it either doesn't cost a penny or it's considerably cheaper than hiring the BA than MA candidate. Of course, some professions (i.e surgeon) will need the background training and knowledge that higher education may provide, but I think we can say that many institutions are nothing more than paper mills and that in many cases employees learn more by doing the job or on-the-job rather than from the theoretical discussion in higher education.