There really is a level of competence for everybody, and finding yours may be the key to a happy life.
IQ is only one possible (not necessarily required) attribute of competence. And the usefulness of education is not only in relation to employment. And education is not the sole test of employability.
I see a glitch in the system that correlates getting degrees with the opportunity to make more money. What logic is there in a system that assumes a person’s happiness in life should be determined by how much ‘education’ they got while in school? Or that it is locked in to making money?
Having just finished an arbitration hearing where I was grilled for hours by a dishonest lawyer, who I suspect had a middling IQ, and who was fond of asking speculative compound questions while insisting that my answers be yes or no, I am very sensitized to the need parse out concepts that contain a mixture of facts and unexamined, sometimes biased, assumptions.
The topic of the relationships between free education, employability, competence, money, happiness, and status is complex, to say the least. And don’t forget to factor in personality disorders, religion, and politics!
My two cents on education are these - education shouldn’t be regarded as a thing you complete before you reach the age of 25, that serves for the rest of your life as your train ticket to happiness. The rather strong tendency that we have to accept that paradigm without question is a serious flaw in our cultural programming.
(In my opinion)
