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<p>Sure, but it also doesn’t make it not true. Furthermore, there seems to be growing social science evidence that supports the notion that more engineering human capital tends to foster greater innovation. </p>
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<p>Then firms are perfectly welcome to raise their screens if the program becomes less brutal. For example, if eng firms nowadays will only consider hiring engineering students who pass (hence have 2.0 GPA’s), then after the programs become less brutal, eng firms are welcome to respond by hiring only those eng students with 2.5 GPA’s. </p>
<p>But at least those with 2.3 GPA’s will then have a degree, which will give them a better chance of finding some job, even if not an engineering job. After all, American Studies students with 2.3’s are still granted degrees. </p>
<p>{But of course all of that presumes that firms actually behave economically rationally - and there seem to be plenty of reasons to believe that they do not.} </p>
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<p>But that’s the real question - are they selecting for the right type of student? Right now, engineering programs tend to select against the most ambitious, career-oriented type of student - who are precisely the students who are most concerned with GPA. Which is as they must, for unfortunately plenty of other career pathways fixate upon GPA, which compels those students to fixate upon it as well. </p>
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<p>I would return to the same point made before: miseducation in HASS topics has historically proven to be just as dangerous as miseducation in engineering. Ethnic conflicts, racial discrimination, fascism, social darwinism all can be traced back to a fundamental miseducation in HASS. One can also view our current financial straits as a fundamental miseducation in finance and economics, whether by individual bankers who constructed incompetent investments that devastated the economy, or by the investors who provided those bankers with the capital necessary to make those incompetent investments.</p>