Eliminating Unnecessary Degree Requirements from Public Sector Careers

America’s higher education system and career hiring practices need significant reform. In theory, the two should work in lockstep, with a higher education system providing students with the necessary knowledge and skills to become successful, well-paid workers who meet the needs of the modern labor market. In reality, they are worryingly disconnected. As a result, many degree programs fail to prepare graduates adequately for the rewards and remunerations of the working world. The result is a disjointed system where many employers struggle to find the right talent and where many workers, including some of those with four-year degrees, find it difficult to build fulfilling careers.

In decades past, a high school education and a strong work ethic were enough to land a good job, rise up the ranks, and take care of a family. As the economy has shifted, a high school education on its own is often no longer sufficient for a well-paying job. Many jobs unnecessarily require a college degree, ignoring alternative pathways to acquiring skills and shutting many workers out from entire industries. Today, six out of 10 Americans over 25 do not hold a bachelor’s degree (National Center for Education Statistics, n.d.). That does not mean that these individuals—disproportionately from minority populations, rural communities, and economically depressed areas—have not acquired the skills needed for a professional position with the potential for high wage growth (Farrigan, 2020). Often, they are highly qualified by alternative means, including vocational training, apprenticeships, self-directed learning, military service, or years of experience in a related role.

However, the “college for all” attitude ignores these alternative pathways in favor of bachelor’s degree programs and even graduate programs. This has fueled decades of “degree inflation.” According to a study from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, in 1983, more than two-thirds of jobs required a high school diploma or less. By 2021, that share had fallen to just one-third of jobs—and the number of jobs that required a bachelor’s degree had doubled (Carnevale et al., 2023).

Studies have shown that employers often identify a bachelor’s degree as a job requirement when the position’s responsibilities do not actually necessitate the credential (Fuller & Raman, 2017). For example, looking at supervisors of production and operating workers, there is a 51 percent gap between job postings specifying a four-year college degree and employees in the industry who actually have one (Fuller & Raman, 2017). According to research from Opportunity@Work, an organization dedicated to rewiring the U.S. labor market to value skills instead of degrees, 75 percent of new job postings require a bachelor’s degree—but only 40 percent of potential applicants have one. (Trend, 2022).

Nor does specifying a four-year degree requirement guarantee the employers that their new hire will be successful in the role. In fact, 40 percent of employers say they avoid hiring recent college graduates because they are so unprepared for the workforce; a majority report that new college graduates are often late to work, miss deadlines, and lack professionalism (Intelligent, 2023). In one survey of business executives and hiring managers, only 44 percent said recent graduates are “very well prepared” to communicate effectively in writing, and an even smaller proportion, 39 percent, judged recent hires very well prepared for critical thinking (Finley, 2021).

Nevertheless, students grow up believing that a four-year degree is the surest pathway to success in the workplace—to the point that American workers owed about $1.7 trillion in student loans at the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration (Hanson, 2024). Four-year degree requirements also ignore the realities of equipping workers for success in the contemporary workforce. As technological advancements—especially machine learning—continue to reshape entire industries, the skills and competencies required for specific jobs will continue to evolve at a pace that is too fast for a traditional, campus-based education to adapt. Four-year colleges and universities, in other words, inherently move too slowly to equip students with the skills they need for the constantly evolving modern workforce.

As such, embracing skills-based hiring and developing practices and technologies to identify talent in the labor market is likely to be even more important to business success and efficiency in the years to come. Skills-based hiring ends the practice of relying on a four-year degree as a signal of general competency and instead considers the specific skills necessary to do a job—strong writing abilities, skillful use of certain software programs, experience in customer service, a record of success managing people, and the like—and evaluates whether an applicant has those specific skills. Alternatives to college, such as technical certifications, apprenticeships, military service, and prior work experience, are often better predictors that a job candidate possesses needed skills than a four-year degree program. Embracing that reality can save time and money—for workers and employers alike. When workers need to learn specific new skills tightly aligned to their role or function, on-the-job education and short, competency-based credentials are an efficient way to upskill.

Public sector employers, especially state governments, can take the lead and adopt skills-based hiring practices that forgo degree requirements in favor of a more carefully tailored approach to hiring. Governors and state legislators can exercise their authority over the public workforce to prioritize skills-based hiring practices, a reform that would open new pathways to opportunity for millions of Americans.

State Executive and Legislative Action

State job postings often default to including a general “bachelor’s degree required” line in the job description, even when one is not necessary to do the job well. In fact, jobs in state and local government are much more likely to require a bachelor’s degree (or more advanced credential) than jobs in the private sector. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in May 2020, jobs requiring some level of postsecondary education for entry—ranging from a non-degree certificate to a doctorate or professional degree—“made up 63.5 percent of state government employment and 61.1 percent of local government employment” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022).

As the chief executives of their states, governors have the authority to set parameters and standards for hiring state employees consistent with applicable state law. Governors should issue an executive order (EO) directing the appropriate state agency to review all job postings and consider whether any degree requirements included are actually necessary to perform job duties. A strong EO would require state employees responsible for hiring to justify any degree requirements in their job postings by establishing that a specific competency gained in a specific discipline is necessary for the position. Otherwise, postings should state explicitly that no college degree is required and that hiring managers will give due consideration to other work, life, or educational experiences in the applicant’s background. In addition, governors should direct the appropriate state agency or department to develop guidance for all agencies to implement skills-based hiring practices, work closely with state career and technical program officials to recruit their recent graduates, and provide a regular report to the governor. The America First Policy Institute has drafted a model EO that includes all these provisions (America First Governors’ Council, 2024).

While there may be some steps governors can take without issuing an EO to encourage skills-based hiring among executive branch agencies, an EO allows them to send a signal statewide, and even nationwide, that skills-based hiring is a priority in their states. It also makes it easier for governors to hold agencies accountable for following through. As of October 2024, the governors of 14 states have issued executive orders to remove unnecessary degree requirements from state jobs: Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Virginia (see Table 1). A preliminary analysis from the Brookings Institution found that the number of public sector jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree fell from 51 percent to just under 42 percent between 2022 and 2024 (Debroy et al., 2024).

State legislatures can also pass legislation to codify this practice and ensure that state agencies are opening job opportunities to workers without college degrees. Legislators in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and Utah have acted to codify similar requirements (see Table 1). The Cicero Institute has published a model policy, the Expanding Public Sector Career Opportunities Act, empowering legislators in other states to follow suit (Cicero Institute, 2024).

Table 1: Policymakers in 22 states have taken executive and legislative action to implement skills-based hiring practices and remove unnecessary degree requirements for public sector jobs.

Federal Executive and Legislative Action

The federal government has also committed to skills-based hiring for civil service employees. President Donald J. Trump issued an EO in 2020 directing the federal government to assess job applicants’ skills instead of defaulting to earned degrees in the hiring process (Exec. Order No. 13932, 2020). The EO tasked the director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) with reviewing and revising “all job classification and qualification standards for positions within the competitive service.” President Biden embraced the reform and announced that OPM would reevaluate requirements for the federal government’s 100,000+ IT and cyber workers (Alms, 2024).

While this issue has widespread bipartisan support, Congress could opt to codify these practices. Not only would this ensure that a future president does not backtrack on the reform, but it would also require OPM and all federal agencies to enshrine practices prioritizing skills-based hiring for federal government positions. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) introduced legislation to require OPM to create online platforms that would streamline the use of “position-specific technical assessments that allow applicants to demonstrate job-related skills, abilities, and knowledge.” The Chance to Compete Act passed the U.S. House overwhelmingly in 2023 (Chance to Compete Act, 2023).

In addition to codifying skills-based hiring for federal government positions, members of Congress could follow suit in their own office hiring, identifying promising young people from their districts who are not in college or do not have college degrees for internships or jobs.

Private Sector Incentives

While elected officials should not force businesses to change their hiring practices, they can set the standard in the public sector and establish proper incentives for private sector businesses to follow. Many private sector companies, including Walmart, IBM, and Accenture, already prioritize skills-based recruitment strategies that look beyond college job fairs and focus on talented individuals from all backgrounds (McMahon & Pidluzny, 2023).

States can also encourage partnerships between private companies and high school career and technical education (CTE) programs, technical institutions, apprenticeship programs, and other avenues for skills training outside of four-year colleges. State departments of education and labor, as well as local school boards, should seek out local private companies—including small businesses—to see how they can connect students with job opportunities and work with those organizations to provide students with the skills that would make them hirable.

Lastly, states can amend their bidding process for state contracts to prioritize businesses that practice skills-based hiring, such as those that run their own apprenticeship programs or have removed unnecessary degree requirements from their job postings. States have used this mechanism in the past to incentivize action in the private sector, including forbidding state contracts with companies that boycott Israel (Brandeis Center, 2017) or with companies that deny service to gun and ammunition companies (South Dakota Governor’s Office, 2023a). In addition to creating an incentive for private sector companies to reassess their hiring practices, states are likely to achieve better outcomes from the businesses they contract with if those businesses use skills-based hiring. A recent McKinsey & Company study concluded that “hiring for skills is five times more predictive of job performance than hiring for education,” suggesting that firms that focus on skills are likely to have better outcomes (Hancock et al., 2022).

Looking Forward: Higher Education Reform and Alternative Career Pathways

Shifting away from degree-based hiring and toward skills-based hiring is a simple first step, but it is just one of many overdue reforms toward creating an environment where all American workers can flourish. Policymakers at all levels should also work to create an equal playing field for all postsecondary opportunities so that high school graduates have a host of options easily available to them.

To start, school boards, state legislators, and state departments of education should expand access to alternative pathways for K–12 students, such as increasing the number of CTE opportunities in middle and high school, encouraging rising high school seniors to apply for apprenticeships alongside or instead of colleges, and offering youth apprenticeship programs that allow students to try out a career while still in school (Todd-Smith et al., 2023). Breaking away from the college-for-all mentality must begin in middle school and high school.

Next, state and federal legislators should hold university officials in their states accountable for some of their institutions’ failures to prepare students for the workforce—as well as for sometimes low graduation rates and high levels of student debt. At the state level, legislators control a significant portion of their public universities’ budgets. Rather than rubber-stamping millions or billions of dollars each year, legislators must take a hard look at their state higher education funding model and ask hard questions: Are universities controlling administrative bloat and non-instructional spending? Are there strong incentives for state colleges and universities to develop and invest in degree programs with a positive ROI? Are universities preparing students for the workforce and positioning the state to advance its economic priorities?

At the federal level, Congress must develop a comprehensive vision for reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. Legislation that holds universities partially accountable for defaults by their student borrowers would create a strong incentive to develop academic programs with a strong return on investment and end the practice of enrolling students without the requisite preparation to succeed academically College Cost Reduction Act, 2024). Congress must also refashion our broken accreditation system, which may be the most significant barrier to entry for new and innovative institutions (Cuff, 2024).

Third, governors and state legislators should invest in programs that provide an alternative to a four-year degree, such as apprenticeships, technical institutions, and certification programs. States like Iowa and South Dakota invest state funds in apprenticeships, including start-up grants for businesses to develop curricula and create these work-based learning programs (Iowa Workforce Development, n.d.; South Dakota Governor’s Office, 2023b). States like West Virginia have invested heavily in community and technical colleges that prioritize job readiness by leveraging federal grants to invest in programs across multiple colleges and through initiatives such as dual enrollment partnerships with K–12 charter schools (University Innovation Alliance, 2024).

Finally, legislation that would allow billions in Pell Grants to be used by low-income students to enroll in short-term skills programs, such as additive manufacturing (3D printing) and occupational license training, must be a priority (Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act, 2023). Allowing eligible students to use this funding to pursue education outside a traditional two- or four-year campus would provide more opportunities for low-income individuals to start a track toward a fulfilling, well-paying career—without investing four-plus years or taking on massive student debt to do so. Congress must also work toward modernizing reforms to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to unlock further opportunities for American workers seeking to learn new skills (Oglesby, 2024).

Conclusion

After decades of degree inflation, skyrocketing college costs, and rising awareness that the college-for-all paradigm is broken, policymakers can build momentum toward comprehensive reform with a simple first step: embrace skills-based hiring for public sector jobs and incentivize private sector institutions to do the same. In doing so, they can shape the labor market into one where a worker’s skills and potential matter most, creating more pathways to family-sustaining careers for millions of Americans.