Originally posted as a Twitter thread on March 13, 2019

Educational institutions bundle an education (knowledge) and a credential. The means of getting an education keep getting cheaper — at the limit, it’s just consumption of (free) knowledge — and it’s therefore the credential that’s getting more expensive.

Why did all these rich and famous people cheat and bribe their kids into school? To help them get an education, or to help them get a credential?

Ancient Credentials are not only backwards looking, and a poor substitute for accomplishment, but they are increasingly irrelevant in a world of real time feedback and measurement.

“But would you see a doctor without an MD credential from a top school?” We should care about what you know, how well you practice it, and other relevant metrics

But when those things aren’t easily available or normalized, we instead care about a document, often appropriately enough written in a dead language (Latin) about some past achievement.

6/ Which, coming full circle with today’s indictments, often means nothing.