If employers rewarded well-educated workers for skills alone, failing a class and forgetting a class would have identical career consequences. They plainly don’t. Take me. After three years of Spanish homework, Spanish exams, and Spanish presentations, I remember nearly nada. Yet if I had failed high school Spanish, I couldn’t have gone to a good college, wouldn’t have gotten into Princeton’s Ph.D. program, and probably wouldn’t be a professor. Luckily, I learned enough to get As on my report card.
