A Remedy to Degree Inflation

A High School Senior’s Musing Dedicated to Sir Robinson

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

As I mentioned in my previous article, Americans have developed a toxic culture that is forcing students to attend college, resulting in the number of degree holders to significantly increase.

Referencing data from The National Center for Education Statistics,

“In the 2010/2011 year, 943,506 Associate degrees, 1,716,053 Bachelor Degrees, 730,922 Masters degrees and 163,827 Doctorate degrees were conferred.

Half a decade later, in the 2016/2017 year, 1,005,649 Associate degrees, 1,956,032 Bachelor degrees, 804,684 Masters degrees, and 181,352 Doctorate degrees were conferred.” [1]

This mass influx of graduates in the job market has resulted in a phenomenon known as degree inflation– “the rising demand for a four-year college degree for jobs that previously did not require one.” [2]

As Sir Robinson, educationalist and creativity expert, explains,

“Suddenly, degrees aren’t worth anything…now kids with degrees are often heading home to carry on playing video games because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA, and now you need a PhD for the other.” [3]

College graduates are increasingly unable to find jobs, let alone high paying ones, impacting their standard of living and the economy.

So, what should be done to solve this problem?

Some politicians have proposed defunding higher education or bottle-necking the sheer number of students attending colleges to combat degree inflation, but these shortsighted options simply deny students the right to a quality education.

In this article, I will tackle three core questions.

1. What are degree holders capable of, and what do companies value from candidates?
2. What has degree inflation done to the job market, and what is the current situation?
3. How should we rethink the application of degrees, and what is being done by employers currently?

Before I begin my analysis and argument, let’s conduct a thought experiment.

When you had difficulty doing something, you would turn to someone (e.g. a teacher, friend, or coworker) to help you. Right?

Say when you were a student, if you had trouble on your Geometry homework, you would look for someone who understands how to solve trigonometric equations.

But, how would you determine whether they were competent to teach you and whether they had sufficiently mastered a subject or a skill?

Would you say a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Math is qualified? How about a high school student who received excellent grades in an honours Geometry course?

I think we couldn’t tell. I find titles (even for educational degrees) too vague and ambiguous in determining capability.

As we enter an age with more college graduates, distinguishing among students has become a rather large problem.

Since there is no standard among degrees, companies have been burdened to evaluate these candidates with similar credentials, and their response was to screen out young adults with a high school diploma. Now, many are rejecting adults with a B.A.

I came across a wonderful quote from the Sadhguru, a spiritual master from India, on how we ought to treat degrees:

“What is my certification?” [There isn’t any] certification because doors in the world may open likely slowly for you, but when they open they stay open…Not because of qualification but by competence, you open doors. It is just that everyone is in a mad race.” [4]

Exactly, competence, measured in skills and knowledge acquired should be the only deciding factor for why candidates should be hired, not their degree.

The fact that employers are rejecting candidates because they lack a certain credential shows how nearsighted they have come to be. It is like they aren’t bothered to give anyone that chance to prove themselves.

Just because someone has a degree doesn’t mean that they have the necessary skills to do well in their work. Though at the same time, since you have a degree, you are competent at certain things.

What are degree holders capable of, and what do companies value from candidates?

At best, a degree shows that a student has general knowledge of a specific field (e.g. biology or a certain branch like immunology) along with some sort of competence in general education such as Mathematics and English.

Having completed college, these students must also have some form of reliability, resilience, and dedication.

But even so, a degree is insufficient in showing the specifics that we need.

Instead of determining what these graduates are capable of, many companies are requiring a degree as a form of unnecessary screening, assuming that these candidates have the necessary abilities to work well.

So, what exactly do companies expect from these college graduates since they prioritize them so highly?

In Sir Robinson’s Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education, there seems to be a consensus over skills and traits valued by employers.

“In 2008, IBM published a survey of what characteristics organization leaders need most in their staff [with a sample size of] fifteen hundred leaders in eighty countries. The two priorities were adaptability to change and creativity in generating new ideas. They found these qualities lacking in many otherwise highly qualified graduates.” [5]

Along with the ability to change and to create, 21st Century Skills such as,

• global awareness • financial, economic, business, and entrepreneurial literacy • civic literacy • health literacy • environmental literacy

• critical thinking and problem solving • communication and collaboration

• initiative and self-direction • social and cross-cultural skills • productivity and accountability • leadership and responsibility [are sought after].” [5]

Let’s apply these skills in context.

In the past two decades, there has been a revolutionary change in the technical industries such as computer science.

These companies value the ability to learn on the job, not necessarily content and skills learned in a classroom. Sometimes work done in college could become obsolete and inapplicable to the workforce.

This begs the question once more: why don’t more employers instead tailor their screening process to find these candidates?

What has degree inflation done to the job market, and what is the current situation?

First, degree inflation has resulted in underemployment which is defined as “working in jobs that do not require a college degree.” [6]

According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics,

“The underemployment rate for new college graduates has risen substantially since 2000, [increasing from 34 percent in 2001 to 44 percent by 2012], with a growing number of graduates accepting jobs that are part time or low paying jobs or both.

[Economists, Mr. Abel, Mr. Deitz, and Ms. Su], conclude that recent graduates are having a hard time finding [good-paying, full-time jobs]…Especially since the 2001 recession, those looking for work are experiencing longer unemployment and greater underemployment — likely resulting in permanent damage to lifetime earnings.” [6]

A college degree is supposed to be an investment for higher future earnings, but some graduates are forced to work in jobs that don’t require their degree, finding themselves, not only unable to earn as much money but also, unable to fully engage with their work. [2]

Degree inflation (on the employer’s side) has made all those years spent in college futile for underemployed graduates.

Second, degree inflation creates job inaccessibility.

“Degree inflation hurts the average American’s ability to enter and stay in the workforce. Many middle-skills jobs synonymous with middle-class lifestyles and upward mobility — such as supervisors, support specialists, sales representatives, inspectors and testers, clerks, and secretaries and administrative assistants — are now considered hard-to-fill jobs because employers prefer candidates who are college graduates…In the [Harvard Business School of Education]’s survey, two-thirds of companies acknowledge that stipulating a four-year degree excludes qualified candidates from consideration…

[Additionally], their analysis indicates that more than 6 million jobs are currently at risk of degree inflation.” [2]

Americans without college degrees are being hit the hardest, especially minority and economically disadvantaged populations “such as Blacks and Hispanics, age 25 years and older,” being barred from entering many of these jobs that they have the skills for. [2]

Many companies are asking for a degree credential, but only “one-third of the adult population in the United States has a bachelor’s degree or higher.” [7]

These companies are asking too much from their candidates; they ask for a degree for a job that does not require one, and a majority of Americans aren’t even degree holders.

Third, degree inflation is counterproductive by making

“employers pay more, often significantly more, for college graduates to do jobs also filled by non-degree holders without getting any material improvement in productivity. While a majority of employers pay between 11% and 30% more for college graduates, many employers also report that non-graduates with experience perform nearly or equally well on critical dimensions like time to reach full productivity, time to promotion, level of productivity, or amount of oversight required.” [2]

Companies seem to be handicapping themselves with their selection process, only to find that they have hurt themselves and the candidate.

Why are they making it so hard on themselves?

There seems to be a disconnect between what the companies expect from these graduates and what these graduates can do. Companies overestimate the ability of degree holders and underestimate the ability of non-degree holders.

Companies’ false belief that increasing credentials will screen out the unproductive workers is absurd. Companies need to drastically rethink and evaluate their priorities: “Do the jobs they offer really require a degree or college-level skills?”

How should we rethink the application of degrees, and what is being done by employers currently?

Candidates should not be hired based on their degree, but instead, companies should measure candidates holistically by giving them a chance to demonstrate their skills with a task related to their future work.

According to NBC, if more companies remove the bachelor degree requirement for middle-skill jobs,

“it could aid not only individual job seekers but also the U.S. economy by helping businesses hold onto workers and by boosting the middle class.” [8]

Companies such as “Apple, Google, and IBM have [already] stripped the bachelor’s degree requirement from many of their positions.” [9]

IBM, for example,

“[wants] to bring in people with nontraditional backgrounds who built skills through coding camps, community colleges, or modern career education programs like our P-TECH model or new apprenticeship programs, and [they] want to attract people re-entering the workforce or relaunching their career,’ said Kelli Jordan, IBM’s talent leader for new-collar initiatives.

Reportedly, about 15 percent of the people IBM hires in the U.S. don’t have four-year degrees.” [9]

Companies also need to look at various cost effective options such as “[hiring] non-graduates and then [providing] classroom, web-based, or online training that is customized to the company’s needs.” [2]

Economists, Mr. Abel, Mr. Deitz, and Ms. Su, suggest “higher education institutions [partnering] with businesses and employers to ensure that students learn what majors would help them in improving their prospects for good quality jobs following graduation.” [6]

Even though some companies are making the change and solutions are being made, there is still resistance to change.

“[Mr. Schawbel], a partner and research director at Future Workplace… concluded that while employers are nearly unanimous about being open to hiring candidates without college degrees, most of them aren’t doing that. ‘They say they’re open to it, but they’re not hiring those candidates,’ he said. ‘Some companies are publicly stating they will look past the four-year degree, but it’s still pretty rare.’ [9]

If we are to promote the greater good of our country and the well-being for our people, we must find a way to diffuse the stigma around workers without degrees and reduce credential requirements.

SOURCES:

1. Digest of Education Statistics, 2018. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_318.10.asp
2. Fuller, J., Raman, M., et al. (October 2017). Dismissed By Degrees. Published by Accenture, Grads of Life, Harvard Business School.
3. Robinson, S. (2006). Do schools kill creativity? Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en
4. S. (Director). (2017, March 6). “The Ideal Education” — Sir Ken Robinson with Sadhguru [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAaWZTFRP9Q
5. Robinson, Ken, and Lou Aronica. Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education. Penguin Books, 2016.
6. New college degree in hand: Now what? : Monthly Labor Review. (2014, March 01). Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/beyond-bls/new-college-degree-in-hand-now-what.htm
7. Bureau, U. (2018, January 19). Highest Educational Levels Reached by Adults in the U.S. Since 1940. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/cb17-51.html
8. Lanahan, L., & Report, T. (2019, May 05). Need a college degree to get a job? These companies say skills matter more. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/need-college-degree-get-job-these-companies-say-skills-matter-n1001526
9. Maurer, R. (2019, August 16). Employers Open to Ditching Degree Requirements When Hiring. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/Pages/Eliminating-Degree-Requirements-Hiring-IBM-Penguin.aspx