Employers Rethink Need for College Degrees in Tight Labor Market (non-degree, high school)

[Vision67]

Employers Rethink Need for College Degrees in Tight Labor Market

Google, Delta Air Lines and IBM have reduced requirements for some positions

https://www.wsj.com/articles/employe...d=hp_lead_pos1

"Companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Delta Air Lines Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. have reduced educational requirements for certain positions and shifted hiring to focus more on skills and experience. Maryland this year cut college-degree requirements for many state jobs—leading to a surge in hiring—and incoming Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro campaigned on a similar initiative.

U.S. job postings requiring at least a bachelor’s degree were 41% in November, down from 46% at the start of 2019 ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by the Burning Glass Institute, a think tank that studies the future of work."

"Some occupations have universal degree requirements, such as doctors and engineers, while others typically have no higher education requirements, such as retail workers. There is a middle ground, such as tech positions, that have varying degree requirements depending on the industry, company and strength of the labor market and economy."


Most jobs should not require a 4 year college degree. Hopefully, this trend will help many young people forego signing up for crazy amounts of debt in order to get a decent career that previously required a useless degree.

[Meester-Chung]

We take it for granted that our kids “need” to obtain a college degree because so many jobs require them, but the need is mostly artificial. Thousands of employers across the country have chosen to arbitrarily inflate their job requirements, often demanding that applicants have degrees for positions that don’t actually necessitate them. And it’s only getting worse. Positions that didn’t require any degree 20 years ago now require a bachelor’s, and positions that required a bachelors 20 years ago now require a master’s. This, again, is artificial. People without degrees could perform the tasks necessary for most of these positions but employers disqualify them from consideration right out of the gate, for no good reason.

Obviously, some jobs really do require additional formal schooling. Nobody is suggesting that a guy with a high school diploma should be hired off the street to perform brain surgery at Johns Hopkins. But most jobs outside of science and medicine have to be learned by doing. It’s not as though companies save money on training new hires by limiting themselves to college graduates. They still have to train the college graduates, which is no surprise because most college graduates have little to no work experience.

It might be argued that employers look for the degree because, even if it’s in dance theory or comparative religion, it at least proves that the applicant is competent and hardworking. Well, I’d like to see some research supporting that assumption. I see no reason to conclude that college grads are any smarter, any more competent, or any harder working than non-college grads. In fact, I’d wager that the scale tips the other way. A 23-year-old who has been working and supporting himself since 18 has already demonstrated, at a minimum, that he has the basic skills necessary to be a functioning adult in society. A 23-year-old who has been sitting in classrooms all that time has not demonstrated that or anything else. All the college degree proves, in and of itself, is that he either had the money to pay for a degree or was willing to take on the debt. Why should that fact alone mean that his resume goes to the top of the stack?


https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh...nt-debt-crisis

[Vision67]

Why require a 4 year college degree for a job that really doesn't need it?

-It demonstrates grit. The applicant had what it takes to overcome the obstacles and perhaps demonstrates cognitive ability.

-It's an easy and legal way to screen out minorities.

[tnff]

Originally Posted by Meester-Chung

We take it for granted that our kids “need” to obtain a college degree because so many jobs require them, but the need is mostly artificial. Thousands of employers across the country have chosen to arbitrarily inflate their job requirements, often demanding that applicants have degrees for positions that don’t actually necessitate them. And it’s only getting worse. Positions that didn’t require any degree 20 years ago now require a bachelor’s, and positions that required a bachelors 20 years ago now require a master’s. This, again, is artificial. People without degrees could perform the tasks necessary for most of these positions but employers disqualify them from consideration right out of the gate, for no good reason.

Obviously, some jobs really do require additional formal schooling. Nobody is suggesting that a guy with a high school diploma should be hired off the street to perform brain surgery at Johns Hopkins. But most jobs outside of science and medicine have to be learned by doing. It’s not as though companies save money on training new hires by limiting themselves to college graduates. They still have to train the college graduates, which is no surprise because most college graduates have little to no work experience.

It might be argued that employers look for the degree because, even if it’s in dance theory or comparative religion, it at least proves that the applicant is competent and hardworking. Well, I’d like to see some research supporting that assumption. I see no reason to conclude that college grads are any smarter, any more competent, or any harder working than non-college grads. In fact, I’d wager that the scale tips the other way. A 23-year-old who has been working and supporting himself since 18 has already demonstrated, at a minimum, that he has the basic skills necessary to be a functioning adult in society. A 23-year-old who has been sitting in classrooms all that time has not demonstrated that or anything else. All the college degree proves, in and of itself, is that he either had the money to pay for a degree or was willing to take on the debt. Why should that fact alone mean that his resume goes to the top of the stack?

You sure anyone can be trained to do the job? It's a notion a lot of people have, but that doesn't match what I've seen in reality. I've watched that cycle happen several times. Start off requiring a technical degree AND then six months training. Able to do the job well. Then someone (HR?) decides it's to hard recruiting technical degrees and they can train anyway, so they change the requirement to any degree plus training. Except the washout rate in training goes up because they don't have the background knowledge. And more mistakes happen later because they lack the fundamental understanding.

But hey, this is working, so let's eliminate any degree requirement and just train. Well, the basic background knowledge is still required so now you're having to train that before you can train the job. And the washout rate is even higher. The understanding goes even lower, and you have to restructure the job to remove any thinking from it. The job just becomes a monkey job. But we're doing it with non-degreed people. Except now you have to hire a backroom of consultants to do the thinking part of the job. It didn't go away; you just moved it and hid it in the back room in a different budget line. Net result is you're paying more and getting less but can pretend to be doing it without requiring degrees.

The other thought is where does everyone get this idea the 23 year old in college has done nothing but sit in a classroom? The majority have been working to pay for school so when they graduate it's not the classic "4 years of work experience" vs "4 years of school" but vs a combination of work AND school.

[springfieldva]

More and more employers seem to be using pre-employment tests to screen their applicants. Some positions require the ability to obtain additional industry certifications, as needed.

The assessment tests vary in degree of difficulty depending on the job.

So the actual requirement of a college degree might be waived but the candidate will still need to be able to demonstrate a base level of skill/competency to be considered for the position.

[MarianRavenwood]

Originally Posted by tnff

You sure anyone can be trained to do the job? It's a notion a lot of people have, but that doesn't match what I've seen in reality. I've watched that cycle happen several times. Start off requiring a technical degree AND then six months training. Able to do the job well. Then someone (HR?) decides it's to hard recruiting technical degrees and they can train anyway, so they change the requirement to any degree plus training. Except the washout rate in training goes up because they don't have the background knowledge. And more mistakes happen later because they lack the fundamental understanding.

But hey, this is working, so let's eliminate any degree requirement and just train. Well, the basic background knowledge is still required so now you're having to train that before you can train the job. And the washout rate is even higher. The understanding goes even lower, and you have to restructure the job to remove any thinking from it. The job just becomes a monkey job. But we're doing it with non-degreed people. Except now you have to hire a backroom of consultants to do the thinking part of the job. It didn't go away; you just moved it and hid it in the back room in a different budget line. Net result is you're paying more and getting less but can pretend to be doing it without requiring degrees.

The other thought is where does everyone get this idea the 23 year old in college has done nothing but sit in a classroom? The majority have been working to pay for school so when they graduate it's not the classic "4 years of work experience" vs "4 years of school" but vs a combination of work AND school.

Some of the problem is that with so many occupations requiring a college degree, high school curriculum is designed to be college prep. No longer are there civics courses teaching students about basic civil society functions. No longer are there high school workshop or cooking classes. Parents are so focused on college placement that kids these days rarely have after-school jobs, and their days are over programmed, taking away the opportunity to learn and apply time and money management skills, and crucial executive functioning. High school graduates aren't prepared to do anything but sit in a college lecture hall.

The ever-growing professional criteria is a lot to do with keeping women and minorities out of certain occupations. It's quite apparent in the field of architecture and interior design (my field).

Architects (who are mostly men) fought for decades to require that interior designers be licensed. Not because the profession should demonstrate a minimum knowledge of life safety and building materials (they should). But because interior designers are mostly women, and raising the bar denies women opportunities. In every single state, architects carved out a legal exception for themselves, in which architects may also call themselves interior designers, despite the fact that not a single architecture program trains students on any aspect of the interior environment. Because of these laws, most interior designers work for employers that are legally architects. Nearly all are white men. And over the years, the minimum qualification for licensure has increased from an associate's to a bachelor's, to apprenticeship and a professional exam, and now most jobs advertised require a master's degree. For applicants with less than a master's (most of the field), it's an excuse to deny promotions and advancement in employment.

Meanwhile architects also raised the bar for themselves. In all 50 states, architects must complete a minimum of 5 years of education. For many years, this was offered in what was called a '5-year professional' degree. Five years, and all you got was a bachelor's degree. But student loans cannot be extended to a fifth year, and that kept poorer applicants, especially minorities, from pursuing a career in architecture. Then architects implemented laws requiring a three-year post-graduate apprenticeship, followed by twelve separate exams, which could not be taken more frequently than every six months. This meant that even for an architect that passed all exams on the first try (less than half do), an architect is in their thirties before they are legally even allowed to use the term 'architect'. This is hard for anyone, but especially hard for women and minorities. Women represent 50% of all architecture program graduates, yet only a tiny fraction ever complete their training and exams. Two thirds leave the field within ten years. Women are mostly faced with a choice--have kids, or have an architecture license. Both women and minorities are paid less, and thus the burden of low-paid apprenticeships and expensive exams are massive and often insurmountable hurdles. By design.

The current economic trend may cause some fields to lower expectations, but I think it will be temporary. The best thing we can do is advocate in our own fields to slow down the trend for higher and higher educational requirements.

[pullin2]

Originally Posted by Meester-Chung

All the college degree proves, in and of itself, is that he either had the money to pay for a degree or was willing to take on the debt.[/url]

You (or they) are leaving out another subset of degree holders though. I worked offshore rigs, pipelines, flight instructing and independent programming to get through school -- finishing with a STEM degree and zero debt. Sometimes a degree proves a lot more than having occupied a classroom for X semesters. Of course, I didn't finish until I was 28, so maybe I'm an outlier.

I do however, agree with the premise that way too many companies are requiring unnecessary degrees. My son ran up against this when trying to move up in his career. One prospective employer explained: "The degree shows us the ability to stick to a project, and that you can complete long term goals". As if his Commercial, Instrument, Multi-engine, Airplane/Instrument/Multi-engine Flight Instructor, Airline Transport Pilot certificates, Type ratings in 2 turboprops and 3 jets, along with working as regional First Officer, Captain, Check-Airman, Training Captain, and the 1000s of turbine PIC (Pilot In Command) hours didn't prove any long term planning ability.

Sheesh.

[tnff]

Originally Posted by MarianRavenwood

Architects (who are mostly men) fought for decades to require that interior designers be licensed. Not because the profession should demonstrate a minimum knowledge of life safety and building materials (they should). But because interior designers are mostly women, and raising the bar denies women opportunities. In every single state, architects carved out a legal exception for themselves, in which architects may also call themselves interior designers, despite the fact that not a single architecture program trains students on any aspect of the interior environment. Because of these laws, most interior designers work for employers that are legally architects. Nearly all are white men. And over the years, the minimum qualification for licensure has increased from an associate's to a bachelor's, to apprenticeship and a professional exam, and now most jobs advertised require a master's degree. For applicants with less than a master's (most of the field), it's an excuse to deny promotions and advancement in employment.

Meanwhile architects also raised the bar for themselves. In all 50 states, architects must complete a minimum of 5 years of education. For many years, this was offered in what was called a '5-year professional' degree. Five years, and all you got was a bachelor's degree. But student loans cannot be extended to a fifth year, and that kept poorer applicants, especially minorities, from pursuing a career in architecture. Then architects implemented laws requiring a three-year post-graduate apprenticeship, followed by twelve separate exams, which could not be taken more frequently than every six months. This meant that even for an architect that passed all exams on the first try (less than half do), an architect is in their thirties before they are legally even allowed to use the term 'architect'. This is hard for anyone, but especially hard for women and minorities. Women represent 50% of all architecture program graduates, yet only a tiny fraction ever complete their training and exams. Two thirds leave the field within ten years. Women are mostly faced with a choice--have kids, or have an architecture license. Both women and minorities are paid less, and thus the burden of low-paid apprenticeships and expensive exams are massive and often insurmountable hurdles. By design.

I'm not sure I'm totally following the point of your argument. Are you saying that architects don't need to understand structures and materials? That there's no need for professional standards for those who design structures? It sounds like what you're arguing is that professional standards are racist/sexist. I'm not following the logic.

[lair8]

College degree requirements will come back once the labor market corrects.

[Avondalist]

Originally Posted by tnff

I'm not sure I'm totally following the point of your argument. Are you saying that architects don't need to understand structures and materials? That there's no need for professional standards for those who design structures? It sounds like what you're arguing is that professional standards are racist/sexist. I'm not following the logic.

Long licensure processes are discriminatory against women because women often have to choose between having children at a healthy age and their career.