But they don’t reward lifelong learning in any way. They only reward the learning that comes in the form of degrees
You can take nearly every MIT course for free on-line. Spending four years doing that and taking every course in an engineering field may give you a lot of learning, but won’t be worth a plugged nickel when you apply for a job.
When I was taking my engineering degree, there was an Israeli student in some of my classes. He had been an electronics technetium in the Israeli military and then spent a number of years working as an electronics technician in the US. He couldn’t advance without an electrical engineering degree, despite knowing the entire curriculum. He made a deal with his professors that, if he aced all of his exams and the final, he could miss their instructional sessions. They laughingly gave permission knowing that he had little chance of success. Now that he didn’t have to show up to class, he double booked the time and was taking 40 credits per term and finished an engineering degree in about two and a half years which took most full-time students five and a half years to finish. His biggest challenge was that he actually had to sit through the liberal arts courses (which had no relevancy to what he did for a living).
Jeff