Businesses pay taxes and spark huge amounts of taxable activity in the course of operating — that's how they pitch in (even discounting the non-tax benefits that businesses provide to society). If society is not providing education with those tax dollars, that would be society's choice.
I can see some reasons why businesses might want to provide education (and many do in certain circumstances), but in general, I don't see why it should be more their responsibility than society's.
"... in general, I don't see why it should be more their responsibility than society's."
If a business wants to be successful they should invest in employee training IMO. I'm one of these recent college grads with "no marketable skills".
The company I'm with needs iOS developers. They could conceivably try to find qualified people, but that would be time-consuming, expensive and far from guaranteed that they'd find anyone (as there is little iOS developers where I live). Instead, by allowing me to teach myself to build apps, they have someone who will hopefully be making them money in a few weeks/months at a fraction of the price of an experienced developer (if they could find one). This point ties back into the article's observation that people are graduating with unneeded/bullshit degrees.
I would be interested to see some quantification of the total cost to educate a company's work force, compared with its tax burden (and the "taxable activity" it sparks, if that is quantifiable in some way), for a number of different types of companies. Has anyone seen data like this? Doing some napkin-style calculations it seems like I could convince myself of either conclusion.
The 'business lobby' is almost 100% against providing education, which is a significant part of the reason that neither the public nor private sector is doing an adequate job.
Business and society don't operate apart from each other.
I can see some reasons why businesses might want to provide education (and many do in certain circumstances), but in general, I don't see why it should be more their responsibility than society's.