Jan moved to my area about 15 years ago to be closer to family but couldn’t find a job as an office

manager, though she’d been one for years. She was a bright, articulate, middle-aged woman with
glowing references. But times had changed in the decade since she’d last looked for a job. She wasn’t
even getting a chance to interview, as one potential employer after another told her: No bachelor’s
degree, no interest.

The same has been happening to people across the country seeking middle-management jobs, or
those in sales, customer service, and support—jobs that had never required a four-year education
before. The work demands hadn’t changed appreciably, but the educational minimums had. Instead
of looking for the most skilled and enthusiastic applicants, employers were looking for “pieces of
paper”—college degrees. It’s been bad for the economy, bad for diversity in the workplace, and bad
for uplifting low-income families and populations. But only now are employers and the public at large
realizing that not everyone wants or should need a four-year college education to lead a good life.

What this so-called “degree inflation” means is that smart, skilled, personable people who haven’t
followed the conventional college route after high school have been shut out of jobs they could have
performed well—which often means that people of color, who are less likely to attend college, are
denied an opportunity for social mobility. Meanwhile, people with college degrees are often
underemployed, taking on jobs that didn’t make use of their education. A full decade after receiving
their bachelor’s degree, 45% of bachelor’s holders are working jobs that don’t require a college
grad’s skills.

For decades, teenagers and families heard this refrain: If you want to be someone, you have to get a
bachelor’s degree. It’s the only way to make good money. Without it, you’ll be left out of the
21st century global economy. High schools were rated by how many of their graduates went on to
four-year schools, and many still are. But for too many college-goers, the results haven’t been great.
A third leave college without a degree—but often with plenty of student debt.

Antonio Santos is one of the more than 100 people I interviewed for my book, Rethinking College: A
Guide to Thriving Without a Degree. He attended college to become a video editor but left when he
found the instruction too rigid. “I felt like my teachers kept stifling any creative ideas I had,” he told
me. When he dropped out, he took with him $70,000 in student debt. Ultimately, he taught himself
video editing with the help of mentors he cultivated and now makes six figures doing what he loves.

Meanwhile, a shocking 45% of people with college degrees are underemployed, taking on jobs that
don’t need a bachelor’s. The bottom fourth of college grads actually make less money, when
adjusted for inflation, than they did two decades ago.

During the Great Recession, employers searching for higher-quality employees turned to college
grads, which were in plentiful supply. In essence, they were using a degree as a proxy for smarts—
which wasn’t very smart of them. Degree inflation is bad for business, according to a 2017 report by
Harvard Business Review. Managers pay more for college grads yet they ultimately find that
experienced employees without degrees perform just as well. Meanwhile, college grads, seeing
these jobs as beneath them, leave sooner. Rapid staff turnover is expensive and time-consuming.

That doesn’t make a college degree worthless. On average, bachelor’s holders still earn more money
than the average high school or community college grad and the number of good new jobs for them
is predicted to grow. Usually at least some post-high-school training is needed to earn a good living—
with growth in good jobs predicted for this sector as well.
But nearly 30% of people with a two-year associate’s degree actually earn more than the average
four-year grad, according to a 2021 Georgetown University report. Just imagine how much income
gaps might close if employers opened more good jobs to people with less than a bachelor’s in cases
where it really isn’t needed.

That’s how things work in Switzerland. University there is for students who succeed at a very rigorous
high-school curriculum and are moving into professions such as doctor, teacher, or engineer. But
those interested in the hospitality industry, tech, manufacturing, and other fields typically attend
high school half time for the last two years, and work at a paid, part-time apprenticeship in their field
of choice. They then might train for an extra year or so before starting careers that in this country
would require a bachelor’s or even a master’s degree. One expat in Switzerland told me that her
husband, a longtime bank executive, decided to go to university only at the point where he started
working with American bankers, because he knew they wouldn’t respect him without a college
degree. Hotel managers here generally need a bachelor’s degree; in Switzerland, apprenticeship and
some extra training suffices.

The pendulum is starting to swing in the United States, though too slowly. The pandemic created a
labor shortage; at the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement made employers get more
serious about hiring a diverse workforce.

Prodded by such nonprofits as Opportunity@Work, which lobbies employers to hire based on skills
rather than pedigree, more companies are opening previously college-grads-only jobs to people who
have built their resumes through other kinds of training. Tech companies have been among the first
to drop requirements; in my book there are several programmers who learned via short-term
programs or, in one case, a man who self-taught and is now making close to $200,000 a year. The
federal government and more than 20 states have removed bachelor’s requirements from public jobs
that really don’t need a degree.

In Denver, philanthropist Noel Ginsburg started a white-collar apprenticeship program in tandem

Major companies, especially in the insurance and corporate-support sectors, have started their own
apprenticeship programs through community colleges.

There’s legitimate fear that in a skills-over-degrees world, schools will channel Black and Latino
students toward non-college careers. Our nation must keep working at making college more
affordable and accessible for all students who crave a college education. Forget the “College is a
scam” movement. Higher education is worthwhile for many students and should not be reduced in
our minds to mere job training. Intellectual pursuit enriches minds and society.

At the same time, college isn’t for everyone, just as it wasn’t for Santos. We can build more
financially stable families if states create robust white-collar apprenticeship programs in public high
schools and require school counsellors to learn about and honour the many paths—not just skilled
labor and the military, but the creative fields, entrepreneurialism, tech, management, sales, aviation
and even some forms of volunteerism—to a rewarding career and life.
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