I hate using this language; but, sometimes it's best to impeach the opponent with his or her own words.
I have noticed that the overwhelming majority of people who have attacked me or my friends under the assumption that we're insufficiently educated, mocked the idea of self-learning, and appealed to their own authority are white. All of them presumably went to college - I'm just taking their words for it. They're also a lot stupider than people who didn't go to college.
Every time this brandishing of a college degree happens, I recall a conversation that I had with a young woman who was working as a bartender while she was finishing her master's degree.
We got to talking and the subject of free speech came up. I quoted Frederick Douglass and she said that I was relying on the words of white men.
Right then and there, the reality that your college degree doesn't mean that you're smart or particularly educated should be evident. Also the fact that these people don't know that appealing to authority is logically fallacious should say something.
What's more, in general, these people are pissing on their own feet when it comes to intersectionality.
I mean, no matter how you slice it, intersectionality is a streaming pile of bullshit; but, the same people who claim to be the defenders of the underprivileged, the oppressed, and the downtrodden point to their own privilege in order to try to win an argument.
I did go to college and graduated at the top of my (very small) class. I never point to my degree to bolster my point even if the discussion is relevant to my formal education. When I quote Douglass, I'm quoting Douglass. I'm not pointing to a college degree because he never had one. He never had a college degree; but, he was still smarter than me or you. He was more articulate and thoughtful than any person reading this despite the fact that it was illegal for him to learn to read while it was illegal for all of you to not go to school.
It's just not funny anymore. An idea can be wrong regardless of how formally educated the person is who speaks it. An idea can be right as expressed by a person with no formal education. It's an act of cowardice and, usually hypocritically, an appeal to privilege.