Reposted from Wonky News Nerd
It just keeps getting harder for Americans to get into the middle class and stay there. New research finds that a trend toward “credentials inflation” is keeping otherwise qualified people out of good jobs simply because the potential applicants do not have bachelor’s degrees.
According to the report, published Boston-based Burning Glass Technologies:
- Employers now require bachelor’s degrees for a wide range of jobs, but the shift has been dramatic for some of the occupations historically dominated by workers without a college degree. The credential gap can amount to 25 percentage points or more for middle skill jobs in some occupational families, like office and administrative and business and financial operations. For example, 65 percent of postings for Executive Secretaries and Executive Assistants now call for a bachelor’s degree. Only 19 percent of those currently employed in these roles have a B.A.
- In some roles, employers prefer bachelor’s credentials even when that makes the position harder to fill. For example, construction supervisor positions that require a B.A. take 61 days to fill on average, compared to 28 days for postings that don’t require a bachelor’s degree.
- In other occupations, such as entry level IT help desk positions, the skill sets indicated in job postings don’t include skills typically taught at the bachelor’s level, and there is little difference in skill requirements for jobs requiring a college degree from those that do not. Yet the preference for a bachelor’s degree has increased. This suggests that employers may be relying on a B.A. as a broad recruitment filter that may or may not correspond to specific capabilities needed to do the job.
- Jobs resist credential inflation when there are good alternatives for identifying skill proficiency. Many health care and engineering technician jobs, such as respiratory therapists, show little sign of upcredentialing. That is likely because those positions are governed or by measurable skill standards such that employers do not need to look at a college degree as a proxy for capability.
“One implication of this trend,” the report states, “is that many middle-skill career pathways are becoming closed off to those without a bachelor’s degree – a group that still comprises nearly two-thirds of the U.S. workforce.”
This news is especially bad because getting a four-year degree has been rising alarmingly fast for decades. The result is crushing debt for graduating students. That means that, even if a degree leads to a middle-class job, the cost of paying for that education has the potential to seriously offset any increased earnings.
According to the Project on Student Debt:
Seven in 10 college seniors who graduated in 2012 had student loan debt, with an average of $29,400 for those with loans. The national share of seniors graduating with loans rose in recent years, from 68 percent in 2008 to 71 percent in 2012, while their debt at graduation increased by an average of six percent per year. Even though the financial crisis caused a substantial decline in private education lending while these borrowers were in school, about one-fifth (20 percent) of their debt is comprised of private loans, which are typically more costly and provide fewer consumer protections and repayment options than safer federal loans.
Clearly, something has to give here. If corporate America is going to keep insisting on seeing the sheepskin, it needs to join forces with those seeking to make college education more affordable and accessible. Otherwise, the result for them is going to be a self-inflicted “labor shortage” caused by a largely imaginary “skills gap” in the labor force.
Of course, there was a time when employers used to routinely train people for jobs, or even invest in the college educations of their workers. Some still do. More could be encouraged to do so. But voluntary action like that is no substitute for public investment in post-secondary education of all kinds.