I don't agree. The problem with grades is that they actually don't mean anything. They indicate nothing about a student other than how they responded to questions, at an arbitrary date and time, against how an arbitrary instructor graded those responses. For everyone who understood the game, it didn't matter. For everyone who doesn't understand the game, it probably doesn't matter.
After education, there is a world of "pass/fail" tests where sometimes passing or failing doesn't matter and the rules are foggy. Some people become well adjusted, productive, members of society and their community and some don't with many shades in between. But those aren't things that can always be taught let alone graded. You can maybe grade yourself (if you have the maturity to do so objectively) and your boss and peers may grade you, as may your SO/spouse, but those scores are have real world value and are based on real world criteria. That criteria can't be prepped for and forgotten next week, but has to be part of who you are. If you're passing those tests, you're doing something right, if not, you need to adjust. No amount of schooling (I specifically didn't use "education" there) adequately prepares you for that. Experience and introspection does.
What happened to merit? It was re-labeled "privilege". You don't think you actually earned your accompilshments, do you?
... but, I did. Through a lot of hard work and solo night sessions coding. I'm not saying the world owes me anything for that, but I think it raises my value against those that spent their time differently, all other things being equal. That is, if I have thousands of hours more doing one thing (and, humbly, I believe I have a bit of natural talent - but I really can't be sure of that) at the expense of something else, have I not earned something in one area and potentially lost experience in another?
Once again, I'm not saying the world owes me a job, just that I've done things that put me in a better position to get and stay at one.
fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped.