It might be (even) harder now for higher ed to prove its value.
If you don’t need a bachelor’s degree to get a good job, what does that do to the value of college? And perhaps even more to the point: How does that raise the bar on the ROI of higher education?
Those are two questions I’ve been pondering a lot as I take in a series of studies on the changing job market, some recent pronouncements on more-equitable hiring, and the growing movement for what people are calling learner and employment records. I’m also contemplating the impact of a national ad campaign to debut in September, urging employers to look beyond “the paper ceiling” and hire job candidates based on their skills.
I’ll confess that right now, I don’t know the answers. But I do think these developments collectively pose some big challenges for higher ed in the next few years, especially given enrollment’s already downward slide.
So let me explain what’s gotten my mental juices going here. I’m curious to hear if these pieces add up for you as they do for me (let me know).
The job-market studies, both produced by the Burning Glass Institute and other partners, are a good place to start. Researchers examined more than 15 million job postings nationally between 2016 and 2021 and found that more than a third of the top 20 skills specified for the average job had changed. One in five of those top skills was entirely new to the work. And the pace of change accelerated during the pandemic.
Matt Sigelman, the institute’s president, sees “significant implications for higher education and its ability to ensure that graduates have the skills they need to launch successfully,” he wrote me when the report was released in May. So, no, higher ed isn’t out of the game, and indeed still has a vital role to play.
However, an earlier Burning Glass Institute report (released in February) found that employers’ demand for bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees was “starting to decrease perceptibly.” Across multiple sectors, almost half of middle-skill jobs and nearly a third of high-skill occupations showed significant reductions in degree requirements between 2017 and 2021. That pattern also accelerated during the pandemic.
This is good news for equity in hiring. By the institute’s estimate, over the next five years the shifts will mean 1.4 million more jobs open to workers with the requisite skills but no degree.
Employers aren’t lowering their standards, Sigelman told me. When they drop degree requirements, job postings become more specific about skills, spelling out the soft skills once assumed to come with a college education, such as writing, communication, and attention to detail. In other words, the employers are not relying as much on the degree as a signal.
The development of digital wallets — tools containing workers’ learner and employment records — could propel more skills-based hiring. The wallets let individuals collect and share verifiable records of their schooling, work, training programs, and military service, among other experience. The tools are still emerging as a factor in hiring, but as I heard on a Credential Engine webinar last week, this is an active front, including a push for common technical standards among wallet developers. Such consistency would be a vital step in actually importing data from a variety of sources and sharing that via employers’ applicant-tracking systems. (This market scan on digital wallets, produced by Jobs for the Future, offers a ton more detail.)
Will the skills-based hiring trend continue? While some major employers, like IBM and Accenture, have famously altered their hiring practices, the Burning Glass Institute notes that several tech companies that had made big announcements about favoring skills over degrees in hiring for IT jobs still haven’t eliminated degree requirements from their job descriptions. And I wonder what will happen once the current glut of jobs gets filled and employers can be pickier again.
Others aren’t as doubtful. This shift is real and long term, and it will continue to be fueled by “the structural shortage of talent we’re facing,” said Joseph Fuller, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and a co-author of the institute’s February report. “Good companies are going to start changing their procedures,” he told me when we chatted this spring at the Jobs for the Future conference in New Orleans. “The smarter companies will adapt faster, and they will win.”
There’s no denying that the movement for more-equitable hiring does have momentum right now. In recent months, governors in both Colorado and Maryland have announced campaigns to eliminate four-year-degree requirements for thousands of state jobs, moves that come in the wake of a 2020 executive order calling for an end to “the overreliance on college degrees” in federal hiring.
The momentum could mount when the public-service ad campaign gets under way. The Paper Ceiling campaign, developed by Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council, is designed to encourage more employers “to remove hiring barriers” that now keep qualified workers from landing jobs. I’ve written before about Opportunity@Work and its equity-minded efforts to lift the prospects of some 71 million people in the United States it describes as “skilled through alternate routes.” Notably, associate degrees seem to qualify as an alternate route.
Opportunity@Work does not mean to attack higher education, says Byron Auguste, the organization’s co-founder and CEO. “It’s not college that’s the enemy,” he said when he previewed the campaign at the JFF conference. “The paper ceiling is the enemy.” Still, I can’t help but think the distinction might get lost along the way, especially in the campaign’s characterization of alumni networks as part of “the invisible barrier” in hiring.
To be clear, I think Opportunity@Work is on the money in highlighting how employers’ reliance on alumni connections leaves many qualified job candidates at a disadvantage. I also know that many colleges promote their alumni networks as a selling point. That’s why I see the ad campaign, against the backdrop of these other developments, as further challenging the value of higher ed.
What does a degree represent beyond a graduate’s collection of skills acquired in college? What distinguishes the experience? How can institutions help graduates communicate that to potential employers? If and when learner and employment records come into their own, how will they affect the value of a degree? Will this truly become an economy where people successively acquire education from various providers throughout their lives? How can colleges capitalize on any of this?
My cup of questions runneth over, and I’d love to hear from you on any of them. Will any or all of this raise the bar for higher ed? Please write to me here, and I’ll share what I hear in a future newsletter.
Staff members need support, too.
“Put the student first.” This tenet of student success has become a campus mantra. Meanwhile, how can institutions keep dedicated — but human — staff members at all levels from burning out? How can leaders help the people who help the students?
A recent Chronicle virtual event, “The Role of Frontline Workers, Online and On Campus,” covered strategies for staff collaboration at student-centered institutions and provided tips on how to retain and engage employees, a pressing concern given staff shortages and fatigue.
Part of our yearlong series on student success, produced with support from the Ascendium Education Group, the panel was moderated by Katherine Mangan, a Chronicle senior writer, and Sabrina Sanders, director of a student re-engagement program at California State University-Dominguez Hills. Here are two takeaways.
Professional development matters. Remote work isn’t an option for housekeepers, so Washington University in St. Louis devoted some days to virtual career training. The positive response was “a wake-up call to us that we should have been doing this” even before the pandemic, said Kawanna Leggett, senior vice president for student affairs. Valencia College, in Orlando, encourages staff members who may sometimes feel like they’re just punching the clock to take advantage of expanding virtual opportunities for professional education. That learning “ties people into the work they’re doing from a career perspective,” said Daniel T. Barkowitz, assistant vice president for financial aid and veterans’ affairs.
Emphasize “active management.” Keep in frequent touch with employees, said Joseph Spadaro, vice president for information technology at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. If staffers need a flexible schedule because of personal commitments, “the answer is always yes,” he said. Leaders need to show compassion, said Sherri C. Roberts, the registrar at Southeast Arkansas College. Supervisors should listen to their employees, she added, instead of “always saying, ‘Get to work, work, work.’” Managers can even be vulnerable themselves to connect with their staff, suggested Barkowitz. “Sometimes life is just hard.” —Maura Mahoney
Got a tip you’d like to share or a question you’d like me to answer? Let me know, at goldie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to see past issues, find them here. To receive your own copy, free, register here. If you want to follow me on Twitter, @GoldieStandard is my handle.
