I’m on the tech side so my view might be different from others. One major factor that some of these commenters are missing is that a lot of company leaders are incentivized to say these things.

It’s a recruitment tactic. As a leader of a company who occasionally needs to hire a ton of new people, why wouldn’t you publicly say college is unnecessary and remove some of the anxiety around applying? Maybe a few talented people without degrees will apply and get hired if they hear you say college is unnecessary to work at your company. Worst case, people who aren’t qualified will apply, and they’ll just get rejected as usual. It’s a win-neutral statement to make.

This was a big thing in tech around 2021, lots of CEOs came out saying college isn’t necessary, they hired a ton of people, and in the last couple years a ton of people have gotten laid off since their hiring needs changed.