The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification

This book challenges the taken-for-granted nature of requiring educational credentials to enter high paying professions such as medicine and law. The author, however, carries his arguments beyond what they will support by suggesting that class conflict, not increases in knowledge within various professions, is the sole explanation for an apparent educational credential arms race. It is well worth consideing his perspective as a challenge to the current higher education system, but don't take his story as the complete story.

A most revealing explanation of American life and the educational explosion, its creation and effects.