College as a Solution for Unemployment?

Start with some well-known facts:

1. The unemployment rate among those with college degrees is about 4%
2. For those with only a high school diploma it's about 9%
3. For those who did not complete high school, it's over 13%
4. Less than 30% of the population over 25 has a college degree. 

So, what conclusions should be drawn here? The simplistic -- and most common -- conclusion is that we should send more people to college. That's what the President says we ought to do. And, not surprisingly, he says that the government should offer ever greater subsidies for that endeavor. But as usual, the President is missing the point. College degrees are not inherently useful in themselves (ask someone who invested six figures getting a degree in Gender Studies); they are, for the most part, proxies for employers who want to hire people with above average intelligence and initiative. If the number of people getting a college degree doubled, unemployment among the college educated would rise precipitously (Of course if today's high school graduates were actually taught as much as the high school graduates of fifty years ago, far fewer would need to go to college to learn to read and write competently).
What actually counts is what you can do for someone else that is valuable. Someone with no college degree, but who can write C++ code proficiently is far more valuable these days than much of what manages to get through four-year universities.  A radiology technician does not need a college degree -- merely the ability to perform scans properly. The days of being able to earn a good living by simply showing up to perform mundane tasks is over. There are millions of people around the world offering to do those sorts of things for far less. Economic success requires you to have a competitive advantage -- whether that is inventing a solution to an important problem or being able to hit a round ball thrown at 95mph. If you don't have one, you're in trouble, and your country is in trouble (Claiming a "right" to be supported by those who have developed an advantage doesn't get us out of trouble either). Paying to get more people into college is likely to be about as effective as doubling spending on K-12 education has been.