This article presents something of a false dichotomy — either inflate the value of a college degree or build a better signal — when in fact it’s more nuanced than that.

It’s all well and good to talk about “building a better signal”, but let’s not overlook the fact that for vast numbers of talented people, the college degree is the most viable means of accessing experiences through which they can build a signal, or even produce a signal in the first place. Just having the internet available isn’t enough for students from the inner city or from remote rural areas. (In fact it’s a bit of a privileged assumption that these people have internet access at all.) If they have no experiences to market, then what good does LinkedIn do? The college degree for these folks represents a way to build their skills and explore their talents that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

So let’s not bury the college degree just yet.