{"id":10047,"date":"2024-04-08T15:04:54","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T19:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=10047"},"modified":"2024-04-08T15:06:45","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T19:06:45","slug":"more-employers-are-eliminating-4-year-college-degree-job-requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=10047","title":{"rendered":"More employers are eliminating 4-year college degree job requirements"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dren LaPhayne, 31, a junior data analyst apprentice for a nonprofit healthcare network, never completed her college degree.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI tried college for eight years, but it ultimately wasn\u2019t for me,\u201d LaPhayne told Yahoo Finance. \u201cI have always been interested in a tech career but struggled with the abstract math concepts, and I was the only person of color in high-level classes, which was daunting.\u201d<\/p>\n

LaPhayne, who lives in Tulsa, Okla., enrolled in a free boot camp through\u00a0Multiverse<\/a>, a tech startup that offers an apprentice program, which led to her\u00a0position<\/a>, which began in December.<\/p>\n

Read on Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMy current job is an actual dream,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m working in a flexible environment that allows me to learn things at a pace that is feasible for me. The company is ethnically diverse, and I\u2019m earning a salary of $60,000 a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding a job without a four-year college degree has been a tough slog for decades, but there are signs that it could be getting easier. Three new reports flag the surge in jobs being posted that don\u2019t require four-year college degrees.<\/p>\n

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\"Dren<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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College wasn’t the path for Dren LaPhayne, but her current data analyst position that did not require a degree is “an actual dream.\u201d (Photo courtesy of Dren LaPhayne)\u00a0(Photo courtesy of Dren LaPhayne,)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fewer degree requirements \u2014 even in specialized fields<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A third of employers said they have nixed degree requirements, according to a\u00a0new survey from Payscale\u00a0<\/a>examining compensation across industries. And only about a fifth of organizations say they still require a college degree for all salaried positions this year.<\/p>\n

That said, for half of the firms surveyed, education does matter when it comes to how much someone is paid. \u201cSkills-based hiring is gaining momentum in light of ongoing skills shortages and a shrinking workforce,\u201d Ruth Thomas, pay equity strategist at\u00a0Payscale<\/a>, told Yahoo Finance. \u201cBut this is really the beginning of that journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

The survey of more than 5,700 employers based primarily in the US is promising \u2014 \u201cbut that may not mean that they’re actually hiring people without degrees just because they consider them,\u201d Amy Stewart, Payscale associate director and the author of the report, said.<\/p>\n

More evidence of the shift: A recent\u00a0report\u00a0<\/a>from Indeed Hiring Lab revealed that more than half of the jobs posted on Indeed in January didn’t list any formal education requirements. That’s up from 48% in 2019. And the share of US job postings requiring at least a college degree has inched down in the last five years.<\/p>\n

Formal educational requirements are declining in nearly every sector and occupational group analyzed by Indeed. In the last five years, sectors with historically high educational requirements have seen the biggest changes, according to the research. Project management jobs, for example, showed the largest shift away from bachelor\u2019s and graduate degree requirements \u2014 58% of these postings required at least a bachelor\u2019s degree this year, down from 67% in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve had a couple years of tighter labor markets, and that can explain some of the reason why we’ve seen employers trying to expand their pool of workers by removing some of those requirements,\u201d Cory Stahle, a labor economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, told Yahoo Finance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this is a trend that was happening before the pandemic and these tight labor markets that we had. We’ve seen a bigger push for these kinds of skills-focused hiring practices, especially for the purpose of hiring a more diverse workforce and expanding the type of workers that are being hired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fraction of Americans have four-year degrees<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The reality is that most US workers have had to battle educational hiring barriers for decades.\u00a0Just over a third of Americans<\/a>\u00a0ages 25 and up had a bachelor\u2019s degree in 2022.<\/a>\u00a0The unemployment rate for those 25 and older with a high school degree, but no college, is nearly twice as high as for college graduates.<\/p>\n

The news that more employers are opening up the gates for those who don\u2019t have a degree is a good thing for so many reasons, but the biggest one is purely economic.<\/p>\n

The average in-state cost of tuition and fees to attend a ranked public college is nearly $10,662 this school year and $42,162 for a private university,\u00a0U.S. News data<\/a>\u00a0shows. Those lofty prices don\u2019t even consider what students must pay for housing, food, and books, which can easily run thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n

Jettisoning degree requirements could also help close the pay gap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we study racial pay gaps, a key driver is access to education, which limits the earning potential amongst people of color,\u201d Thomas added.<\/p>\n

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\"Payscale\"<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Payscale 2024 Compensation Best Practices Report\u00a0(Payscale)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lip service or meaningful change?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But are non-college-graduates getting hired?<\/p>\n

\u201cI would just say that these trends vary significantly by job type,\u201d\u00a0Mona Mourshed,<\/a>\u00a0founder and CEO of Generation, a global employment nonprofit, told Yahoo Finance. \u201cFor example, our\u00a0June 2023 research<\/a>\u00a0showed that more than half (61%) of employers of entry-level tech roles have\u00a0raised\u00a0<\/em>requirements for education degree and work experience over the past three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

A further reason for skepticism: Nearly half of the firms seem to be making the change in the job requirement, with no meaningful difference in actual hiring, according to a recent\u00a0report<\/a>, a collaboration between the\u00a0Harvard Business School’s Managing the Future of Work\u00a0<\/a>project and the Burning Glass Institute, an independent nonprofit research center, examining 316 million online job postings since 2012.<\/p>\n

The report details how the trend toward no degree prerequisites for job applicants has ramped up as state governments like Pennsylvania and Maryland, tech firms, and big industries have all publicly removed requirements for thousands of jobs. Some of the leaders include Koch Industries, Walmart, Apple, General Motors, Target, Cigna, Tyson Foods, ExxonMobil, and Yelp.<\/p>\n

The number of roles that fall under the no-degree requirements almost quadrupled from 2014 to 2023, per the report. But when set against the backdrop of the millions of roles employers hire for annually, it has \u201cmade only modest inroads,\u201d according to the researchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing, though, is that simply removing a condition for applying for a job does not change the ultimate outcome of the hiring process,\u201d Joseph Fuller, a professor at the Harvard Business School and a co-author of the report, told Yahoo Finance. \u201cThe job posting is only the first step in the hiring process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only a little over a third of the firms in the analysis followed through and made a tangible change in the profile of those they hired after revising the job’s educational prerequisite.<\/p>\n

Education still wins out<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Employers highly value job candidates with a college education, said Bradley Schurman, a workplace expert and founder and CEO of\u00a0Human Change<\/a>, a global strategic research and advisory firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if it comes down to two applicants with equal abilities,\u201d he said, \u201cthe one with the college degree is more likely to get the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The future labor market may demand faster change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at near-record levels of labor market participation. At the same time, we also have an aging population,\u201d Stahle said.<\/p>\n

With the demographic pressures from the falling US birth rate \u2014 which will produce fewer workers to replace those retiring \u2014 being able as an employer to expand your hiring pool is going to be vital, he added.<\/p>\n

\"Kerry<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Kerry Hannon<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Senior Columnist<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Kerry Hannon is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist, and the author of 14 books, including “<\/em>In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in The New World of Work”<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and “Never Too Old To Get Rich.” Follow her on X\u00a0<\/em>@kerryhannon<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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