I agree with his sentiment for the most part. The reason I imagine hiring managers prefer those with university degrees is that without knowing other information they have some idea that such a person has those coping mechanisms to deal with the rigors of university. This is of course not perfect but when you're looking at a stack of resumes I imagine this has to be a differentiator.
FTA: "Why not make the problems harder and let students use every possible tool or resource to solve them? Even students singularly focused on learning for its own value would get so much more out of the experience."
From my own experience my open book exams in Physics were ridiculously difficult. We would use all sorts of tricks to cram as many equations onto the double-sided piece of paper we were allotted. I feel if you agree to an open book exam the difficulty of the exam can (and should) increase dramatically. Be careful what you wish for ;-)
Open-book exams should be ridiculously difficult, as they are intended to test understanding rather than rote memorization. Anyone can memorize a formula; figuring out when and how to use it is what the class should be teaching.
Similarly, in a programming class, the exam should not be testing whether or not you've memorized the Java boilerplate code. Sure, if you use it enough you will memorize it, but that's not what makes a good programmer. Either provide the boilerplate or let the students look it up; the focus should be on solving the problem.
> my open book exams in Physics were ridiculously difficult. We would use all sorts of tricks to cram as many equations onto the double-sided piece of paper we were allotted.
Doesn't sound like it was an open book exam if you were just allowed a cheat sheet.
Real life is pretty hard too. We let so many people into university that difficulty almost necessarily has to drop in order to keep enrollment numbers up.
FTA: "Why not make the problems harder and let students use every possible tool or resource to solve them? Even students singularly focused on learning for its own value would get so much more out of the experience."
From my own experience my open book exams in Physics were ridiculously difficult. We would use all sorts of tricks to cram as many equations onto the double-sided piece of paper we were allotted. I feel if you agree to an open book exam the difficulty of the exam can (and should) increase dramatically. Be careful what you wish for ;-)