My White Feather

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about college degrees and employment. In it, the Journal highlights decisions by major companies to forgo requiring college degrees for new hires. The primary driver of this push is the economy: it’s getting increasingly difficult to find new employees. But, as the Journal explores, employers are starting to realize that there is no longer a strong correlation between having a college degree, and being a capable, trainable employee.

For forty years plus, educators have exhorted high school students to attend college. One of the most important trends in America the last two generations has been the increase of high school graduates attending college immediately. Usually, this advice has been accompanied by the argument that going to college equates to greater career and financial success during one’s life. Data to back this argument consists of higher earnings at “present” for those with a college degree, along with lower rates of unemployment, especially during recessions.

There is a growing pushback against this advice. The perception of a crisis in student loans, combined with anecdotal evidence of failures to achieve anticipated results upon college graduation, has caused many to question the validity of the “go to college, you’ll be better off” argument. Further, many people with a stake in the system are realizing that the issue is not truly binary (college v no college); there are other avenues to pursue. Now, even employers are realizing that having a degree isn’t necessarily required for a new hire to be promising material.

The push to enroll high school graduates in college was always based on shaky assumptions. When one looks at data, one needs to consider the underlying causes of the data. So, while it certainly was true in 1980 that college graduates had better results going forward in earnings, that data was based mostly upon people who had gone to college during the period right after World War II. In 1950, only about 30% of college-age people were enrolled in school. And only about 10% managed to complete a four-year degree. ¹ These were, not surprisingly, generally the most accomplished students, and, by extension, the most capable at learning new, complex jobs. Employers sought them out for important positions that paid well.

That changed by the ’80s. The percentage of students who went on directly to college doubled in that period. Further, the percentage who completed four-year degrees had more than doubled. This meant that the type of student who was continuing on to college was no longer the top 25% or so by ability to learn. Instead, students who would be considered quite “average”² were now attending college. As that change developed, the availability of top-level jobs for college graduates diminished, since a greater number of graduates were chasing after the same jobs.³ So, for a prospective ’80s college student, being told to go to college because you’ll get a great job was already questionable logic.

The trend of attending college peaked in 2016. That year, fully 70% of high school graduates were enrolling right away in college. Given that overall high school completion rates have increased to over 90% that’s a LOT of college students. And, by 2018, fully 62% of those who had entered college in 2012 had obtained a four-year degree. What this means is that the pool of people with a bachelor’s degree (or more) is substantially greater now than it was when the push to send students to college really got started.

This would not be a problem, except that the rationale for attending college has changed. When I went to college in 1977, I did not do so with the expectation that it would land me a job. I did so because my family had raised me to believe that a person with a college education benefitted from that education in non-tangible ways. Knowing how to conjugate third-declension Latin nouns doesn’t earn me more money. My understanding of American Constitutional History didn’t ever land me a plum job. And I seriously doubt that anyone’s promotion to Executive Vice-President hinged on being able to compare and contrast the writing styles of Faulkner and Steinbeck, as I had to do in my Freshman English/American Lit survey course. I went to college because I liked learning things, and college afforded me the ability to learn much more than I could in high school.⁴ But today, students view college as a gateway to a job, in large part because of the economic rationale used to convince them to go.⁵ So, if a college degree doesn’t result in a good job, students feel like they have been swindled.

This is especially true today because a college education is costly. In the mid-’70s, the cost of a state university education was minimal. Tuition and fees at University of California for in-state residents was $630/yr. in 1975-6. Even private schools were relatively inexpensive: the University of Rochester (my alma mater⁶) charged $4,050/yr. for tuition ($19,965 in 2022 dollars). While higher education wasn’t exactly free, it was very inexpensive. And, when tuition assistance was needed, it was usually able to be supplied through work programs on campus (a student might, for example, work in the dorm cafeteria, or as a clerk in the housing office, etc.). But those same figures today are $18,152 for UC, and $60,550 for UofR. That means it is six times as expensive to attend UC today, compared to 1975, and three times as expensive to attend UofR. If it weren’t for the substantial expansion of student loan availability, the growing influx of students could never have afforded the cost.

But Americans are beginning to understand that there are other options. Both students and employers are realizing that, if the purpose of “higher” education is to make a person ready to obtain a quality job, then the only “higher” education needed is that which qualifies the person for the job. So, for example, in the Journal article, Google has on-line programs that offer training in fields like digital marketing. Much like the student who used to attend vocational training (say, in welding) to obtain a trade job, today’s students can be trained in the course of a few months to do “white” collar jobs in complex industries. The employer still avoids the cost of training, but doesn’t have to wait for the person to complete four years of college, with classes in things that aren’t directly relevant to the job.

States are getting in on the act. Maryland, the article notes, has implemented a review of requiring college degrees for employment with the state. For the summer hiring months, 41% more people were hired without degrees compared to the same period the previous year. And, as a result, 14% more people were hired in that time frame. The newly elected governor of Pennsylvania promises to attempt something similar.⁷

There is one potential downside to this concept. It is typically easier for someone to attend college during their late teens and early twenties, when they can take advantage of still living with their family, than doing so later in life, when they must try to integrate college with jobs and families. This could result in lower rates of people who get a four-year degree eventually. For those who see a college education as having value, regardless of its effect upon one’s future employment results, that’s a real negative. And colleges are already getting squeezed by reduced numbers of college enrollees. As the Baby Boomer Baby Bump9 moved past college age, the number of people attending college has begun to drop drastically. This is squeezing small, independent private colleges out of the market; several in the New England and Midwest areas have already closed their doors. That will make the financing of a college education even more difficult (it’s not like a university can just downsize its campus by re-purposing its science labs or its dorms easily). But for the average student who simply wants to head into their thirties with a good job, and not much debt, this trend is sweet music to the ears.
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1. Data derived in large part from a large longitudinal study found here: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf

2. A reminder that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with being “average”. By definition, in any group of people, about 67% are defined as “average”, that is, falling within one standard deviation to either side of the mean (average).

3. These statements are general. One must keep in mind that the type of job available in the 2000s, let’s say, was significantly different than the type of job available in 1980. Thus, a greater number of white collar jobs was available, so the pool of jobs being chased was admittedly larger. But not that much larger.

4. It should be remembered that “high” school was developed solely for the purpose of readying students for college. At the time, most Americans stopped schooling at about age 13, at the end of their “primary” schooling (for most, the 8th grade). After that, you either worked on the family farm, or you got apprenticed into a trade. This is why high school still, to this day, makes large numbers of students learn Algebra, despite there being very little relationship between determining the roots of a quadratic equation and completing the tasks of 90% of jobs in the American market.

5. Students aren’t the only ones who view college this way. Sadly, some politicians are viewing it similarly. Some states are beginning to evaluate their state universities on the basis of how successful their graduates are in obtaining employment within a few months of finishing their degrees. This, of course, completely misunderstands the true purpose of attending college.

6. Alma mater is Latin for “nourishing mother”. See also: alumnus, “one who was nurtured”.

Okay, so maybe I do like having studied the language.

7. Please note that the program in Maryland was instituted under a Republican governor; the incoming governor in Pennsylvania is a Democrat. This is something that transcends politics, or it should be.