Slap Them In Irons

There are times when I think that the the universe of generally-recognized post-secondary credentials is far too time-bound and monopolized by traditional education organizations. The fact that degrees are so standardized and derivative of time spent learning--two years for an associate's degree, four years for a bachelor's degree, too many years and the flower of your youth for a doctorate, etc.--instead of being based on actual objective evidence of learning strikes me as terribly limiting. It stays that way in large part because the current system is in the best interests of traditional colleges and universities, which dominate both the teaching and credentialing functions of higher education--and thus have a financial interest in basing the credential on how long (and thus, how much money) you've spent being taught by them.

Then I read articles like yesterday's Times expose of so-called financial advisors who steal from old people under the guise of paper-thin credentials:

[Scammer guy] is one of tens of thousands of financial advisers working hand-in-hand with insurance companies to market themselves to older Americans using impressive-sounding credentials like “certified elder planning specialist,” “registered financial gerontologist,” “certified retirement financial adviser” and “certified senior adviser.”

Many of these titles can be earned in just a few days from for-profit businesses, and sound similar to established credentials, like certified financial planner, that require years of study, difficult tests and extensive background checks.

The clear lesson here--beyond the obvious fact that people who effectively rob senior citizens of their life savings by tricking them into investing in ridiculously inappropriate investment vehicles are nothing more than common thieves who should be slapped in leg irons and send away to lengthy prison sentences--is that a wholly unregulated market for educational credentials would surely produce more abuses along these lines. That doesn't mean we should be stuck with the standard year-based degree system forever, but it does mean that loosening up the market should be accompanied by a commensurate increase in oversight.