MY USA TODAY COLUMN: For True Equality, Ban The Box: The College Box. “College is sold as a source of social mobility because getting an education improves your chance of getting a job. But there’s another way of looking at things: College isn’t so much a source of mobility as the lack of college is a barrier to moving up, a barrier that disproportionately affects the poor. . . . So if you want equality, the best thing to do is to ban employers from asking students where they went to school and, perhaps, even if they went to college at all.”

Plus: “Without relying on colleges as a foundation for credentialism, we’d have to find some other way to assess candidates. But odds are it would be something more closely associated with actual performance on the job: A competency test, for example, or an apprenticeship program. These kinds of credentials would be faster and easier to acquire — and less tied to pre-existing privilege — than college degrees are now, and less likely to promote old-boy (or -girl) networks that freeze out newcomers. They’d probably work better for employers, too.”