With fewer degree requirements, the federal government can break the ‘paper ceiling’ 

Education has become one of America’s most significant dividing lines. Those with bachelor’s and advanced degrees have mostly prospered, while employment prospects, wages and advancement opportunities for those with less education have fallen. 

Yet, with so much else dividing our country, there is a growing bipartisan consensus that we must tear “the paper ceiling” that denies opportunities to those without at least a bachelor’s degree.

Early in the 2000s, many employers began adding degree requirements to job descriptions — whether they needed them or not — using the degree as a proxy for job preparedness. As a result, workers without a bachelor’s degree were screened out of opportunities. For example, in 2015, 67 percent of production supervisor job postings asked for a four-year college degree, even though just 16 percent of employed production supervisors had graduated from college.

Research from Opportunity@Work found that because of this “degree inflation,” there is a talent pool of skilled workers being left behind in our economy. The data shows that Americans skilled through alternative routes other than a bachelor’s degree represent 50 percent of the U.S. workforce. Many of them possess skills that should qualify them for jobs with salaries at least 50 percent higher than their current job. 

In other words, our current hiring practices systematically underutilize the skills of millions of U.S. workers, deepening the economic divide between those with and without college degrees.

Luckily, degree inflation is starting to reverse in some places. In one recent survey, 81 percent of employers said they are looking at skills rather than degrees as they struggle to fill open jobs. And this is true even at the federal level. 

In June 2020, Former President Trump signed an executive order that modernized the assessment and hiring of federal job candidates based on skills and competencies instead of degree attainment. The executive order was continued by the Biden administration, demonstrating the bipartisan nature of this issue. 

This bipartisanship is playing out in states as well. Along with many other ideologically diverse organizations, the Cicero Institute — where one of us serves as education policy director and is a senior fellow — and Opportunity@Work have helped 17 blue and red states enact policies to remove degree requirements from jobs that don’t need them and push for a more merit-based hiring system.

While the momentum in government is there, implementation has been slow. As the largest employer in our nation, more work must be done to ensure the federal government is leading on skills-based hiring. To do this effectively, the Biden administration should:

• Focus on Implementation: The administration needs to move away from degree requirements and start to hire those without degrees. While this can be difficult to do, federal leaders must update each agency’s hiring processes, job descriptions and job boards while also ensuring the public is aware of new opportunities.
• Include Contractors: While the executive order was a good first step, it is limited in scope. It removes degree requirements for federal government positions, but the government still requires many of its contractors to hire only those with degrees. This excludes many workers, such as veterans and others, from government contracting opportunities.
• Ensure that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) policies are not a barrier to skills-based hiring: The EEOC  is well positioned to lead on this work as it is responsible for enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws. Those without college degrees, who would benefit from a different approach to hiring, are disproportionately people of color, people from remote communities and veterans. However, many employers say that they want to hire using non-degree credentials and assessments but fear non-compliance with EEOC’s “disparate impact” rules. These rules — designed to promote opportunity for minority groups — might be making it more difficult for well-meaning employers to deliver such opportunities. To make matters worse, too often these rules are not applied to college degrees, even though degree-based hiring has a clear disparate impact due to preexisting gaps in degree attainment. While the EEOC acknowledges that unnecessary educational requirements adversely affect certain workers, they must do more to revise their policies to make skills-based hiring less risky for employers or, at the very least, level the playing field by clarifying that degree-based hiring requirements are subject to disparate impact in the same way as assessments and other non-degree credentials.

Policies at the national and state levels have helped lead the way in skills-based hiring, but much more is needed to ensure that non-degree workers have the same economic opportunities as those with degrees. The federal government should focus on implementation, include contractors in these efforts, and lean on the EEOC to ensure its policies are not inadvertently hindering opportunities for disadvantaged groups. 

These actions can help move the needle in the public sector, influence other employers across the country and ensure economic opportunity is shared for all American workers — that is something both parties can come together on. 

Michael Brickman is an education policy director and senior fellow at the Cicero Institute. Taylor Maag is the director of workforce development policy at Progressive Policy Institute.