Employers Rethink Need for College Degrees

Austen Hufford wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal titled Employers Rethink Need for College Degrees in Tight Labor Market (Nov. 26, 2022).

« 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. »

« The shift comes as demand for workers remains high and unemployment is low. Job postings far outpace the number of unemployed people looking for work—10.7 million openings in September compared with 5.8 million unemployed—creating unusually stiff competition for workers. »

« Lucy Mathis won a scholarship to attend a women in computer science conference. There, she learned about an IT internship at Google and eventually dropped out of her computer science undergraduate program to work at the company full time. The 28-year-old now makes a six-figure sum as a systems specialist. “I found out I had a knack for IT,” she said. “I’m not good at academics. It’s not for me.” »

« More than 100,000 people in the U.S. have completed Google’s online college-alternative program that offers training in fast-growing fields such as digital marketing and project management, the company said. It and 150 other companies are now using the program to hire entry-level workers. »

« A four-year college degree holder has more lifetime earnings than one without. The lifetime earnings of a worker with a high-school diploma is $1.6 million while that of a bachelor’s degree holder is $2.8 million, according to a 2021 report by the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University. »

« But many people don’t finish college and are left with mountains of debt—more than 43 million people in the U.S. hold a total of $1.6 trillion in student-loan debt. While a college degree can provide specific workplace skills, workers can gain the skills needed for many jobs without a four-year degree. »