An interesting statement I've seen in a couple of books about IQ testing as an employment qualification is that at ALL levels of ability it is advantageous to seek a college degree if that degree makes the difference between being classified as an "engineer" rather than being classified as a "technician." Some technicians plainly are very smart and very economically useful to the organizations that employ them. Both technicians and engineers can be found at a variety of levels of ability. But for the individual job-seeker, whatever the level of ability, the expedient thing to do (in that category of occupations) is seek the college degree and become an engineer. Apparently, the job market treats even a lousy engineer who is barely able to do engineering work better than a technician who is matched by ability proxy (IQ score) before the degree was sought.
I offer no firm conclusion about why this is so. Perhaps engineering programs in colleges impart skills that are valued by the job market enough to boost an engineer's earnings over the long term. Or perhaps hiring and promotion procedures in many companies favor the social signal given by possessing a college degree. Or perhaps there is a lurking variable other than IQ that distinguishes persons who seek engineering degrees from persons who do not seek engineering degrees for technical occupations. It would take more data to tease out the causation of this phenomenon reported in the literature on job-candidate testing for employment, but meanwhile I would advise people near and dear to me who have such career aspirations to seek an engineering degree if at all possible, as that appears to offer positive economic returns for a person with a typical lifespan and labor force participation.
I have no comment on the usefulness of degrees in other subjects, which may vary quite a lot.
We have a service tech here who has been prototyping a pretty slick Android app that will be integrated into engineering. From my brief experience working with him, my estimation is he has a natural talent for this stuff that eclipses even the majority of our senior engineering staff. In his spare time he does robotics competitions.
Had another guy like that I worked with 6-7 years ago. No degree, learned everything on the job, then got a CS degree from night school over a couple years so he could be promoted to an actual engineer. Left after his first review, got a job as a sr. engineer at another startup, then was promoted to a director before he turned 30, leading a team of 12. The best engineer I ever worked with.
Now my experience is quite different from a good deal of folks on HN, but I went to a decent school (UCSD) and worked at 4 startups and 1 bigco here in San Diego, in agreggate about 100 engineers over the years.
I've worked as an engineer at HP for many years and have had the pleasure to work with some extraordinarily smart and talented technicians. Many of them got their degrees while employed and moved up to engineering positions here or elsewhere. However, many technicians prefer not to become engineers, even if they are fully aware of the fact that they are smarter and more productive than some of the engineers (a not-uncommon situation).
I think one of the reasons is that in a technician role your role and responsibilities are more clearly defined as a tech and project failure is generally blamed on the engineers. Also, there's less clerical overhead and more hands-on work when working as a tech.
I got to talking with a power line crew as we waited for the utility to give the go-ahead to fix downed lines in our neighborhood.
They felt the utility engineering personnel had very little comprehension of how the field work was actually done, and complained they got direction that made little or no sense. And they made a lot more than the engineers, though they had to travel the country and work long hours to do so. These guys were licensed and came through a certification program, but had little or no college.
They allowed that the engineers had much better theoretical knowledge, but were so divorced from the realities of the work as to be basically useless in disaster recovery.
Power line crews are often very well paid to compensate for the fact that there is a real risk of serious injury or death.
Engineers usually work under more controlled conditions, but I know electrical engineers who consider the power line guys insane for the risks they take and wouldn't trade with them.
The difference between a technician and an engineer is not a college degree; it is the nature of the job description, the importance and centrality of the role, and level of responsibility. Many engineers working for Google, for example, do not have college degrees and are self-taught. To point this out is not to denigrate education, nor ignore your other points-- just one of the premises.
This is true in some organizations, but in other places the difference between "technician" and "engineer" literally is an engineering degree. I currently work at such an organization: you can't have the title "engineer" unless you have an engineering degree, technicians cannot rise above a certain level in the organization (which effectively puts a ceiling on their pay, as well), and technicians cannot be placed in positions of authority over engineers. A lot of this is stupid and makes no sense: I know "technicians" who are doing the same work as "engineers," better than many of the engineers they work with, but they are paid less and work under less experienced team leads, all because they lack a degree. Unfortunately, I'm sure there are plenty of other places that do things the same way.
Thinking about some of the people I've known who have worked in these roles, I wonder if the dichotomy between engineer and technician can be better described as theoretical vs. practical and design vs. maintenance.
Also, some engineers only have 2 year degrees, the same as many technicians. But the content of the education is different: very broadly speaking, breaking along theoretical vs. practical lines, with some crossover.
CYA plays a large role. HR departments can always justify hiring an engineer. If the company takes a chance on a smart person without a degree and they screw up the company looks bad. OTOH if an supposedly educated engineer screws up the company had "no way of knowing".
I may be mistaken, but I believe a lot of engineers who work on physical projects like bridges must have an engineering degree and pass other tests to work legally. That would put the degree in higher demand.
I'm pretty sure it does both, create demand (on the job side) and create scarcity on the (needs a degree to work) side.
I think it is funny that some people down voted my own correction for my own comment. People hit the down vote button so fast they don't even think about it.
(someone below said you could edit your comment, and that is true, but it is hard on the phone).
I offer no firm conclusion about why this is so. Perhaps engineering programs in colleges impart skills that are valued by the job market enough to boost an engineer's earnings over the long term. Or perhaps hiring and promotion procedures in many companies favor the social signal given by possessing a college degree. Or perhaps there is a lurking variable other than IQ that distinguishes persons who seek engineering degrees from persons who do not seek engineering degrees for technical occupations. It would take more data to tease out the causation of this phenomenon reported in the literature on job-candidate testing for employment, but meanwhile I would advise people near and dear to me who have such career aspirations to seek an engineering degree if at all possible, as that appears to offer positive economic returns for a person with a typical lifespan and labor force participation.
I have no comment on the usefulness of degrees in other subjects, which may vary quite a lot.