I certainly believe education has its place (after all, the Bible tells us to seek wisdom and understanding.)
I'll be the first to tell you that if my Dad needed open-heart surgery, I most certainly wouldn't want a doctor who claimed to be "self-taught"! (Unfortunately, the equivalent of that is happening now days in which medical workers take "quickie" courses for procedures they have little experience with--and people wind up dying.)
I was once told that employers look for degrees as a standard of character and work ethic--they're trying to set a baseline and so they assume that someone who has earned a degree has, to an extent, already demonstrated an ability to work in a professional setting. It's believed that someone who's put in all the work towards a degree has already proved they are self-disciplined and responsible enough to be able to keep up with demands and deadlines.
But I think the biggest problem I have with education is that it's so hit-and-miss, and in some ways, a huge gamble. There are no guarantees. It's a given that people go to school to "find a better job" with higher pay and supposedly, a better life for themselves and their families. But I've known several people who went to school to be nurses, psychologists, and even a pilot--but couldn't find jobs after getting their degrees. (When I left school, a group of doctoral students in the program I was was in the process of suing one of my former professors because they claimed he told them there would be jobs waiting for them--and there weren't any.)
So now these people are left with tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt... and on the surface, their degrees look fantastic. But they can't find anyone who will hire and "pay them what they're worth."
As Cristen touched on, I do think there is a very ugly side to education as well. It often creates a mentality of "elitism" in which everyone thinks they're too good for actual work and should be paid top dollar just for gracing people with their "highly educated" presence. Even here in the forums, people who might not have the best spelling or grammar skills are often relentlessly criticized without mercy.
At one of my former jobs, everyone was supposed to take turns cleaning the bathrooms. Of course, there were several people who felt they were way too good and too important for such a task and left it to the rest of us. I was especially infuriated by one particular male co-worker in his 50's who was trying to pawn the job off onto a young female employee --WHO WAS 7 MONTHS PREGNANT. I can't deny that I wanted to whack the guy in the face with the bowl brush--AFTER I finished cleaning each and every one of those toilets. (Ironically, this man was an alcoholic and was later fired because he thought he was too good for EVERYTHING--and never worked.)
*shrugs*
Now of course, cleaning the bathroom wasn't my favorite job, by far, but one thing is for sure--it was a great way to keep my pride in check. (My pride, yes. But my anger at these "elitist" co-workers? Not so much.)
