HK knows that "future competitiveness" is something I consider smile. Being skipped a few years may reduce competitiveness in some situations where you compete by grade, but as you get older, you compete by age, and there the grade-skipped person may have an advantage over agemates, since he or she has had more years since school completion to accomplish things. Employers may not ask about age for legal reasons, but they do consider it.

Women (and to a lesser extent men) who finish college early have more years to pursue graduate study or work intensively before the biological clock starts ticking loudly.