Credentials Are Not Capabilities

I have worked hard, despite not having a degree, to be as good in my career field and in my intellectual pursuits as I could possibly be. There are some places where a university education would really have helped. However, I have increasingly been finding the following "paradox" to hold:

The people with the most credentials know the least, feel the most, and they don't know how or why.

Credentials aren't capabilities. That is, credentials are no longer a signifier of actual skill¹. In an ideal world, they would demonstrate some basic competence, but this is increasingly not the case. I have anecdotally found this to be the case due to educational institutions falling prey to one of two things:

1. They become "degree mills." That is, they take in money², and then they do the bare minimum to remain accredited. They produce people who are good at taking tests, but not in applying those skills in the real world.
2. They have become idealogically captured. That is, it is more important that they instill their ideological agenda rather than teach students Critical Thinking and actual skills. They produce people who are good at parroting talking points or getting their answers from the first available Google/ChatGPT result.