Everything in this post is post hoc and discussing things you already knew, since you did not make any predictions and go collect new data to test them, so I can’t help you there.
But businesses cancel projects that aren’t working out all the time.
Yes, businesses cancel projects—through proper channels like executives and managers (ie. not the sort of employee fresh out of college, or non-college as it may be).
So in some sense you’re just pushing back the question: why should employers interpret leaving college early as “flaking” rather than “I got what I came for (e.g. a job) and now I’m rationally reprioritizing”?
Because dropouts usually haven’t gotten what they came for? They are applying for a job some time afterwards. People who are hired out of college, or who are, say, startup founders who took a leave of absence and never came back, would be regarded differently if decision-makers are given sufficient individuating information and compute to appropriately condition on. (And to the extent there is any uncertainty, there will be residual confounding.)
And so if you think of college graduates as a group which is assigned special privileges within society, then you want to enforce a sharp boundary in order to make norm enforcement more tractable.
Yes, no one is surprised if, say, doctors or lawyers are a bit sharp-elbowed about who has a MD or JD. But at least from this description, it seems like you’re going to have a lot of problems because when you compare “the college degree” to a clear case like those, it’s a really terrible, vague, poorly-enforced norm/identity!
Because dropouts usually haven’t gotten what they came for?
Good point. I think I was implicitly thinking about the kind of dropouts in my social circles, but of course the sheepskin effect is primarily about more “normal” dropouts.
I think you are underselling the ‘norm’ theory here
Re your original point, though: when I said that the sheepskin effect weighs against the “learning professional norms” hypothesis, I specifically meant the learning professional norms (as human capital) hypothesis. This is distinct from the signaling professionalism hypothesis.
The former predicts that employers should favor students based on how much they’ve learned about professional norms (which shouldn’t have any sharp discontinuities as a function of time spent at college). The latter predicts that employers should favor students who signal professionalism through things like graduating. (Of course you could have a combination of the two, but then it’d still only be the latter that contributes to the sheepskin effect.)
Everything in this post is post hoc and discussing things you already knew, since you did not make any predictions and go collect new data to test them, so I can’t help you there.
Yes, businesses cancel projects—through proper channels like executives and managers (ie. not the sort of employee fresh out of college, or non-college as it may be).
Because dropouts usually haven’t gotten what they came for? They are applying for a job some time afterwards. People who are hired out of college, or who are, say, startup founders who took a leave of absence and never came back, would be regarded differently if decision-makers are given sufficient individuating information and compute to appropriately condition on. (And to the extent there is any uncertainty, there will be residual confounding.)
Yes, no one is surprised if, say, doctors or lawyers are a bit sharp-elbowed about who has a MD or JD. But at least from this description, it seems like you’re going to have a lot of problems because when you compare “the college degree” to a clear case like those, it’s a really terrible, vague, poorly-enforced norm/identity!
Good point. I think I was implicitly thinking about the kind of dropouts in my social circles, but of course the sheepskin effect is primarily about more “normal” dropouts.
Re your original point, though: when I said that the sheepskin effect weighs against the “learning professional norms” hypothesis, I specifically meant the learning professional norms (as human capital) hypothesis. This is distinct from the signaling professionalism hypothesis.
The former predicts that employers should favor students based on how much they’ve learned about professional norms (which shouldn’t have any sharp discontinuities as a function of time spent at college). The latter predicts that employers should favor students who signal professionalism through things like graduating. (Of course you could have a combination of the two, but then it’d still only be the latter that contributes to the sheepskin effect.)