The Signalling Problem

The labour market needs to sort people by what they can do. With no cheap, trustworthy signal of competence to go on, it falls back on the degree: a four-year, five-figure proxy that bundles thousands of unrelated skills into one credential and certifies none of them precisely.

A matching-and-verification problem

This is market design. The degree is an inefficient sorting algorithm: high latency, high cost, coarse resolution, and only a loose link to the specific skills an employer needs. Unbundle it and the real problem appears: trustless, portable verification of a single skill, proven in a way an employer can check without trusting whoever issued it.

Solve verification and matching for individual competencies and the degree shrinks back to the narrow role it deserves. That is a mechanism-design challenge. Hiring only feels permanent because nobody has built the alternative yet.