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fubarobfusco comments on What Is Signaling, Really? - Less Wrong
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Possibly a side issue, but one motivation for signalling occurs when measurement is difficult for some reason e.g. regulation.
Giving prospective employees an IQ test can be quite hazardous for the employer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_and_public_policy
Spending $50,000 on college - and incurring toxic student debt in the process - to prove something that can be demonstrated by a $500 test seems strange, in the absence of other factors. Particularly when colleges use a near-IQ test (SAT) as one important criterion for admission!
I read a George Will column where he said that aptitude tests for jobs used to be much more common. Then some employers got sued because racial minorities were doing too poorly on the tests. Requiring a college degree is legally safer than an aptitude test (even though there is at least as much racial disparity in college degrees as aptitude tests).
If you want to be a police officer in New London, Connecticut, you'd better not score too high on the IQ test.