>>111273 (OP)
I am not convinced that this absolutely required government involvement. CompTIA, ISC2, and so on, saw an audience of unemployed nerds who have been saturated for their entire lives in the "the future is MUH COMPYOOTAHS" meme, and sold them mountains of worthless certs, making thousands of dollars off some especially unfortunate cases. You passed the test? Congratulations, here's your shiny white plastic card to carry in your wallet as you go back to your minimum-wage job unloading truckloads of lumber at Home Depot. The people who sell the certs saw them coming and they keep on cashing the checks. CHA-CHING!
Likewise, for the past 15+ years huge numbers of phony cybersecurity job postings have been smeared all over the Internet, with no intention ever to hire any applicant. This allows the new IT manager, whose name is Pajeet Patel, to say "Yes saar no qualified cybersecurity peopleses have applied, we need moar H1Bs so that I can hire my wife and my brother-in-law, pls do the needful." What makes this part funny is that the whole reason the field of cybersecurity had to be created is because Pajeet has already stolen all of his employer's passwords and sensitive data and sold them. Pajeet would not have been caught if he'd only sold them once and stayed bought, but he handed over a thumbdrive to anyone who waved a ten-dollar bill under his nose, and was arrested this morning while trying to sell his employer's office furniture on Craigslist. Pajeet does not regard any of this as inappropriate, because his employers are "firanji" (non-Hindus) and therefore do not really register with Pajeet as people at all. He saw this huge pile of money and he scooped it up, and wouldn't you do the same?
I fell for the meme too, but at least it was the Department of Labor that paid for the classes and the cert test vouchers. I took and passed A+, Network+, Security+, and CASP over the course of a few weeks, no sweat, little effort. The course material is all a mile wide and an inch deep and you really just have to know the difference between one and zero and not be a complete tard. A+ is babby's first cert and each subsequent one is at least 75% material rehashed from the prior one in the sequence. I've still got the plastic cards in my wallet, though I should probably throw them away. Pointless, all of it.
Oh, and the college "career counselors" are the ones pointing them in your direction and telling them to show up early and often and beg for crumbs. "Most jobs aren't advertised! You have to use your personal connections! Ask a family member who owns a business to take you on as an apprentice!" etc. The promises of job placement assistance in the shiny brochures all vanish like snow in the spring once they cash the check. ("You took courses for an IT certification rather than college credit. Therefore you were technically never a student and not entitled to the services of this office.") Yes, I'm still bitter.