The broad education and targeted skills that college graduates usually obtain prepare them for career success. That includes analytical and communications abilities, tailored preparation in popular subjects like business, nursing and computer science, or liberal arts majors that have significant long-term benefits. When undergrads are also able to develop their social capital to build professional networks, so much the better. It’s a category error to treat college degrees like dubious occupational licenses that have become barriers to entry in certain fields.

College degree alternatives may still play a worthwhile role for some students. For all the benefits that accrue to earning traditional two- and four-year degrees, large populations of learners need something different. Tailored, short-term, skills-based programs and credentials in everything from data science to graphic design should be widely accessible — and they should be simple to acquire and reacquire over a lifetime, to meet changing needs. Whenever possible, students should be able to combine them, over time, into two- or four-year degrees. Remember, much of the growth in skills-based credentials seems to be coming from people who already have degrees and want to supplement them with additional skills. They’re taking a “both/and” approach to get ahead, not giving up on degrees altogether.

We often hear that the strong preference for degrees isn’t fair to the majority of Americans who didn’t go to college. But that majority is falling fast, and the percentage of college-educated American adults is pushing 50 percent when associate degrees are included. And while the percentage of Black and Latino college graduates is significantly lower, it is far higher than a few decades earlier. In fact, in 1960, only 41 percent of Americans had completed high school. It might have been plausible then to argue that plenty of dropouts had great talents and were unfairly penalized by high school diploma requirements. But it would have been badly misguided to oppose efforts to vastly improve high school graduation rates, which stand at 91 percent today.

College degree requirements aren’t sacred. But they reflect the unmistakable reality that higher education helps people do well.