One possibility is a system of national exams, sponsored by employers, that would allow students from less prestigious schools to demonstrate that they had learned as much as or more than Ivy grads. As it stands, the top companies companies tend to recruit only at the top schools, so it is difficult for students from West Texas University or California State Chico to demonstrate their qualifications. Hundreds of companies use university prestige as an imperfect proxy for intellectual ability.The elephant in the room is something such an exam cannot measure - social class. Unspoken is employers using Ivy League graduation as a proxy for upper middle to upper class upbringing.
Having spent most of my career teaching Business majors at Cal State Chico - our best were as good as any anywhere - I think the proposed exam would be great. In all honesty, however, our graduates did very well without it, and perhaps still do in the decade or so I've been retired.
In calling out Chico State, Mead inadvertantly picked one of the rare CSU campuses where, for complicated reasons, most students have historically been from middle to upper middle class homes. This is much less true for most CSU campuses where such an exam might be more helpful.
