It's not like people are forced to take student loans.

[lumberjack_jeff]

149. The education that everyone needs to be a citizen = secondary education

We can argue that secondary education is inadequate, in which case it may be appropriate to raise the aggregate water level of mandatory education to 13 or 14 years.

But college is optional. No matter how we try, not everyone will have an above average education. Raising the employers academic expectations (credentialism) doesn't raise salaries, nor does it create more jobs or raise the job duties. All it does is place additional costs onto workers without raising their aggregate value, and creates additional employment barriers for the poor.

When I was a business unit manager for business-to-business technology company, my education never really came up as a topic of conversation when dealing with (primarily government, including representatives from the Japanese government) clients. We didn't always succeed in landing clients, but I'm unconvinced that the reasons had anything to do with our level of education.