"Second, it may provide a credential that employers want, not because it represents actual skills, but because it's a weeding tool that doesn't produce civil-rights suits as, say, IQ tests might."
4 years out of a young person's life when a 2-hour test works better for predicting job performance is sort of awful, isn't it?.
To be fair IQ tests would probably be weighted less in relation to other things on the resume than a college degree is relative to other things on the resume.
But since a college degree is perceived as a more raw evaluation of skill/potential skill than an IQ test (which is more speculative as it only evaluates potential and evaluated in a short test), the degree is often given too much weight.
IQ test: speculative evaluation of potential but requires virtually no money/wealth to master. College degree: can/must be bought with (sufficient) money or (semi) inherited (in the case of legacy admissions). Both are bad.
4 years out of a young person's life when a 2-hour test works better for predicting job performance is sort of awful, isn't it?.