To be completely honest, I know this philosophy is fairly widespread among employers but I think it's fundamentally wrong. I learnt far more during an insurance / financia modeling 3 months course than during years of data-entry like work. As long as college courses have at least 50% of a "practical" bent, they can be far more valuable than work experience.
Where I live, there are two broad streams: colleges and universities. Colleges set you up for certification in an application-based field (generally), while, a lot of undergraduate courses in universities, are only just the first stepping stone. You need something *more* to really enter that field. Either a masters or, even, PhD. Unless the university degree is application based from the start (like Engineering, Computer Science, etc), all other university majors, as an undergraduate degree, are pretty useless in terms of translating to "hireability".
Which is where the experience from internship, or doing an undergrad degree with a thesis component, or summer jobs that are aligned to that field, really help. Not just with giving one better prospect after graduating from undergraduate studies, but with admission to post-graduate studies.
For example, a B.Sc. in Life Sciences from an university - what is that? What does that really prepare one for, in terms of skills to offer to the world? All the people I know who had that degree, chose it to have a clean, simple undergrad where they could better achieve higher GPA because their ultimate goal was med school.
One must know what they're doing with their degree, and whether a degree from an university is even worth it - for their ultimate goal in life. If one has the funds, great, get a degree in Philosophy, but not all can afford to choose passion/interest over practicality. Then, there's also the issue that at that age, not everyone has a clear, long-term plan about their life all mapped out, or what the hell they'll do the next day, let alone for the rest of their life. I know I changed my major twice, because I was still figuring myself out. Until I finally settled on something "practical".....
For that reason, my major for undergrad was something that prepared me for my postgrad education, and because I didn't want to compromise my interests, as well, all my electives, I used to get a minor in my field of interest (English). Having my cake and eating it too, so to speak....
Then, there are people, one even a friend of mine (much older but we were classmates), who are perpetual students. Getting one degree after the other, less-so for the sake of the degree and to enter the workforce, but more to just keep learning. It's commendable but not a realistic choice for everyone. My friend has an undergrad degree in a science-related field, a nursing degree, he is an MD, he also has a masters in another science-related field, then another PhD in the same field he got his masters, and is thinking about another PhD degree (Philosophy of Science or something). I don't even know........