Thesis

Local government is missing out on hiring and promoting a large pool of high-quality employees by unnecessarily and arbitrarily requiring a college degree for far too many positions. As a result, local government is enforcing a “paper ceiling,” which limits a vast number of potential candidates and its own employees who want to advance.

There is no hard evidence or rigorous research suggesting that employees with a college degree perform better on the job than employees without a college education.

Background and Context

For years, the private and public sectors have required four-year college degrees for most of their recruitments in middle- and upper-level positions. There has been a steady “degree inflation” that began when World War II veterans completed college with the help of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs benefits and started applying for jobs.

College degree requirements again surged in the 1980s as U.S. employers outsourced their more automated work globally and began looking for more “soft skills” in their domestic hires, assuming a college degree would ensure a candidate’s suitability. Another surge occurred with the labor surplus of the Great Recession.

In 2018, Harvard Business Review stated that one-third of the jobs that once required a high school diploma now require a four-year degree. One in four jobs that used to require a bachelor’s degree now require a master’s degree. While this change has been occurring, surveys indicate that 75% of Americans believe higher education is unaffordable and out of reach.

How did we get into this predicament? One answer is articulated in a 2022 Human Resource Executive article: Requiring a college degree is a sign of a “lazy employer.” Both the private and public sectors have been using college degrees as an easy screening device to evaluate job applications. The degree filter is quick and easy, but unfortunately, not based on research findings and therefore not valid.

As the supply of applicants significantly outpaced the number of job openings, false and random minimum qualifications were implemented to handle the large volume of applications. Interestingly, during the pandemic when employers had difficulty attracting and hiring the necessary number of job candidates, there was a temporary halt in requiring degrees in the private sector.

Many organizations use degrees as a proxy for the “soft skills.” However, it is an inaccurate assumption that someone who has a degree possesses more refined social skills, such as the ability to work in groups, communicate effectively, prioritize tasks, etc.

Byron Auguste, CEO of Opportunity@Work, stated it best: “If employers don’t have a strategy for engaging non-degree individuals, then they don’t have a talent strategy at all.”

What the Data Tells Us

An important study conducted by the Harvard Business School of Research in 2017 analyzed 26 million job postings. What they found is that employers generally perceived degree and non-degree workers in the same occupation as nearly or equally productive on many performance metrics. Other research is clear and overwhelming, as noted from several reputable sources:

Paperceiling.com Research Data (2023)

1. 70 million U.S. workers do not have a college degree, which represents 50% of the workforce.
2. Between 2012 and 2019, 69% of all new jobs created were in occupations requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher. Only 31% of all new jobs created were available to those without a degree.
3. College degree requirements disproportionally and negatively affect the following: 61% of Blacks, 55% of Hispanics, 66% of rural workers, and 66% of veterans.
4. Only about 33% of Americans have a four-year degree.

Harvard Business Review: Myth of the Well-Educated Manager (1971)

1. There is no correlation between scholastic standing and success in business. Grades don’t predict how well an individual will perform in any position.
2. How effectively a manager performs on the job cannot be predicted by the number of degrees someone holds nor the grades they received.

Social Science Research Network (SSRN): Pace University Finance Research Paper (2004)

1. There is no evidence that firms with CEOs from more prestigious schools perform better than CEOs from less prestigious schools.
2. Firms managed by CEOs with an MBA or law degree perform no better than firms with CEOs without a college degree.

We conducted a search on a very small sample of minimum job qualifications of local government positions in large, medium, and small cities. The results of this search indicated that local government seems to rely far too heavily on college degrees as a minimum requirement for too many jobs, which reduces the talent pool from which to select quality employees.

Local government must consider removing the college degree requirement for more of the profession’s jobs. The data clearly shows that college degrees:

• Are not a valid or effective minimum qualification for the vast majority of jobs.
• Are not indicative of the invaluable experience a candidate has already acquired while working in similar positions.
• Do not correlate to effective and productive supervisors, managers, or executives.
• Prevent expansion of the talent pool, especially when wanting and needing to be more inclusive in hiring of minorities and military veterans.

Why Should Local Government Change Its Job Requirements?

The following are the strongest reasons for eliminating college degrees as a minimum qualification.

1. You are severely limiting your candidate pool. One-half of the workforce does not have a college degree, which means that local government severely limits the potential candidate pool for its job openings. This condition will get worse. In a study conducted by Pew Research Center, 75% of participants felt that college is too expensive for most Americans to afford.” ⁹

2. You are following an erroneous assumption. There is absolutely no data that supports the assumption that college degrees yield better or more productive employees.

3. You are killing any honest effort at diversity and inclusion in your organization. Requiring college degrees disproportionally affects Black and Hispanic Americans, as well as veterans. Your organization cannot say it has an effective diversity, equity and inclusion effort while simultaneously requiring college degrees for most jobs.

4. You are losing your existing talent pool. Research conducted by McKinsey found two significant data points: Seventy percent of workers without college degrees have applied for advanced opportunities. Eighty percent of these workers have had to move to another employer to get a promotion. Local government must significantly improve its training and retention of its own talent pool.

5. The requirement of a college degree is ludicrous. Your college requirement would prevent you from hiring Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, to name just a few. Although you may not be a fan of one or more of these people, they have all been successful.

6. If you don’t change, you are losing the race for talent. The corporate world is beginning to change their hiring requirements. For example, 47% of Apple employees don’t have a college degree and many other corporations are following suit. The states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Utah, Colorado, North Carolina and New Jersey have already dropped the college degree requirement.

How to Move Forward

Knowing what the situation is and how we got ourselves here, the question now becomes: How do we move forward? Edie Goldberg from the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) stated that “moving from requiring a four-year degree to valuing other types of skills and credentials is a big mindset shift for many organizations.” The first step in the path forward is understanding the barriers and obstacles that lie ahead.

Status Quo Barrier: When the status quo is challenged, statements such as, “No, that’s not our policy” or “No, that’s not how we do things,” are very common, but they are a totally insufficient reason to require degrees.

False Assumption Barrier: Many executives—including city managers, department heads, and human resources directors—are often ill-informed about the research and make false assumptions and conclusions about the importance and necessity of having a degree.

Lowering the Standards Barrier: Some executives and managers in the organization will feel that no longer requiring degrees is a diminution of their own qualifications and achievements and will lead to hiring less qualified employees.

Change starts when local government is willing to look at the data and change the status quo by adopting new and innovative policies on hiring practices. The following are some options to consider.

1. Update the Minimum Qualifications

Start with updating the minimum qualifications in the hiring requirements. San Mateo County, California, updated the minimum qualifications in their job descriptions decades ago to what they call their “typical way” language. The following is an example of how this language is used in a “program manager II” job description:

Education and Experience: Any combination of education and experience that would likely provide the required knowledge, skills, and abilities is qualifying. A typical way to qualify is: Three years of experience in a health, social, or community services organization, including at least two years of significant responsibility for one or more of the following: program and budget development, funding, utilization, coordination of community resources, or program evaluation.

This simple change could make the difference between attracting fewer than five eligible candidates to as many as 20 candidates for a single recruitment. Employee shortages are being experienced across the nation. For those jurisdictions that are having a hard time filling positions and keeping talent, changing your minimum requirements will be imperative.

2. Update Applicant Tracking Systems

Many local governments use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) program that screens for key technical capabilities, including college degrees. What these programs often do not screen for are certifications, years of experience, or applied knowledge through on-the-job training. By updating the filters in such systems, the focus can shift to include skilled-based applicants. Imagine the increased talent pool local government could attract if these changes were made.

3. Rethink Your Hiring Strategy

An innovative organization, Tear the Paper Ceiling has developed a very useful hiring playbook. The playbook includes a hiring strategy that consists of planning, retooling, and operationalizing hiring practices.

Several government organizations have already made the shift. The Pennsylvania Governor’s Office was more than willing to make the shift by issuing an executive order in January 2023, opting to “…recognize professional experience, skills, competency, and practical experience and not just educational accomplishments…” when recruiting for their state government jobs. ¹³ Other states that have followed suit include Maryland, Utah, Colorado, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Alaska.

Final Thoughts

It’s simple: If you want to attract more qualified applicants, retain your talented employees, and practice effective DEI policies, then eliminate the college degree requirement. The job of all managers is to hire the best qualified individuals, but if you are adhering to the status quo of requiring a college degree for every position, you are failing at that job.

 

ED EVERETT, ICMA-CM (RETIRED), is a retired city manager (everetted@comcast.net).

 

 

STEPHANIE CASTRO is an economic development project manager for San Bernardino, California.

 

 

 

Author’s Note: Stephanie Castro was the only person among PM readers to respond to my challenge to submit an article for this series. When she proposed this topic, I asked her to do some research. Based on her initial findings and my own research, I was stunned. As one who tries not to fall into the “status quo” group, I admit that I had never considered this issue. I assumed what we were doing was OK, and that was my big mistake. We hope this article will keep you from continuing to make the same mistake.