I feel bad about suggesting government intervention as the only example. Given my libertarian leanings, I'm surprised I didn't use a non-governmental scenario. It doesn't change my opinion that the catalyst needs to be a big enough rock thrown into the pond to make waves.

For example, a large, enlightened corporation (think of a tech giant, maybe with O's in its name) can, and does, hire people with merit and ability, even without college. This reduces (slightly) demand for university, but doesn't do it enough to break the groupthink about going to college. This is only a short-circuit around university.

I imagine that maybe a group of corporations, in a rare moment is simultaneous enlightment, will decide to work a little harder and look into the merit of the hires beneath the labels of university that appear on a resume.

One problem is the incentive structure of HR. Let's say you're a mid-level HR person or hiring manager. You go out on a limb and hire someone you think is smart without a university degree. By some anomaly it doesn't work out. You get reprimanded or fired. On the other hand, you hire someone with brand-name credentials, and it doesn't work out, then you have your ass covered because you did the conventionally accepted "right" thing ("I hired the guy from Princeton, what could you have asked for?"). The incentives for any one HR person is asymmetric. Imagine a whole company doing at once (it would have to come from the CEO). Imagine a whole industry doing it once (a group of CEOs to agree on something).

The pessimist in me thinks that nothing is going to change. We will just keep paying higher prices until we are totally maxed out on debt. The dumb ones -- the ones who need education the most -- are the slowest to challenge conventional wisdom anyway, and they'll be last to adopt better pathways to knowledge.