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Paul A. Barnard

Brian Bailie, PH.D

English Comp

6/20/2019

Assignment Three Rough Draft

by now I’m sure at least some of you have heard someone older say something along the

lines of if I were to apply for this job now, I wouldn’t get it. the first time I heard it was back in

high school my junior year I did not truly understand what they meant by it but as I started

researching this question, I came across degree inflation not realizing that I’ve seen this happen

first hand. when my dad a high school dropout who worked in maintenance for most of his life

lost his job at a nursing home. afterwards he found himself unable to find any maintenance job

even with his 30 plus years of experience it all amounted to nothing but this is not just being felt

by the older generations but us millennials as well more and more careers are requiring higher

and higher levels of education even though those positions never required it before. this is called

degree inflation. with the increased demand for degrees this leaves our generation in a spot

where if we don’t go to college there is no way for us to be successful. with college being so

expensive a lot of people have started to cry out for free education. Which seems like it would

solve the problem, right? but is free education the answer? There are people who are afraid that

by making College free they are hurting themselves by causing degree inflation and devaluing

their degree (Sanders,2018). but free college seems to be more of a way to treat the symptoms of

the problem created by employers. Their increased demand for college degrees for jobs that

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don’t actually require a degree. Degree inflation is caused by the employers who refuse to hire

qualified non college graduates even though this hurts their business as well as the non-college

graduate and the economy, and with 6 million jobs affected by degree inflation who has the most

to lose. there are organizations pushing back against such hiring practices with some degrees of

success and even counties like Germany have found a way.

during the great recession between 2007 and 2009 the unemployment skyrocketed

leaving employers in need of a way to narrow down the list of candidates. by using a bachelor’s

degree as a proxy for soft skills such as communication, time management, and working on a

team. doing this it gave college graduates a leg up in the job search during a rough time but the

problem is that this practice didn’t end after the recession it only grew worse and with an

estimated 6 million jobs being affected by degree inflation (The Australian 2017) the

repercussions are being felt especially hard by the non-college graduates who would normally be

able to or are already qualified to work these position. according to a survey of 600 businesses

conducted by Harvard Business School, Accenture, And Grads of life found that three fifths or

around 360 of them reject qualified non college graduates in favor of college graduates (Grads of

life, 2017)

by refusing to hire qualified non college graduates’ employers cut off potential career

pathways for millions of middle skilled Americans. limiting their access to a decent quality of

life. leaving them with years of experience they can’t put to use because of a simple change in

hiring practices meanwhile these companies are hiring overqualified people for these open

positions. Often times paying them a premium for their college degree instead of hiring one of

the non-college graduates for a lower cost. Companies that practice degree inflation policies take

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longer to fill open positions and once hired for these positions college graduates have a higher

turnover rate often times leaving the employer in the same position, they were beforehand. So do

the benefits of these policies outweigh what they have to gain from hiring qualified noncollege

graduates? Currently degrees inflation polices are unsustainable with the unemployment rate

continually getting lower and lower companies are going to have to make that decision for

themselves but for me it’s an obvious choice paying less for the same amount of productivity

while holding onto the employee longer. filling these positions with qualified non college

graduates it’s the way to go.

(infographic showing how to calculate the degree gap)

the degree gap is a measurement of how hard a particular position has been hit by degree

inflation its calculated by subtracting the percentage of people with a college degree from the

percentage of job postings that require the degree. by doing this Harvard Along with grads of life

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Accenture with the use of burning glass labor insights. with all the information compiled from 26

million job posting it shows the fields hardest hit by degree inflation. and begs the question if the

college degree applicants knew this number would they feel overqualified and less likely to

apply? and even worse would those who are kept from applying because they lack a degree feel

cheated? I feel that is a pretty safe bet to assume they would

As you can see from the graph above manufacturing jobs have been hit the hardest

followed by retail food services and health care well what does this mean. Well based on what I

see in the graph these jobs make up much of the entry level jobs that I’ve worked in the past 7

years and while I was able to work as a lowly laborer, I was never able to move up even when I

had the skills and for people that don’t pursue a college degree this is there life always stuck in a

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cycle of being qualified for a promotion but not having the degree to facilitate it. keeping

millions of middle skilled employees from making a decent living.

In an article published on innovation hub by Wen Lei she summarizes the findings of

economist Bryan Caplan in his book “The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is

a Waste of Time and Money.” in his book he states “Really most of what education is, is a

passport to the world of real training. So, you go and spend all these years studying stuff that you

don’t need to know,” “And that lets you go get a job that’ll teach you how to do the job.” in a job

market that values degrees over skills this statement rings true but college degrees don’t always

equal skills. which is one of the main reasons a lot of employers began using degrees as a way to

filter out applicants and deem those with degrees as having skills so if this isn’t true why are all

these companies still doing this

If College for all comes to fruition it wouldn’t be a bad thing there are those who even

see it as necessary to reach short- and long-term economic goals and I personally think a well-

educated society could not only be beneficial for the United states socially but economically and

politically as well. but the thing is college isn’t for everyone and people shouldn’t be forced to do

it just because they can’t find gainful employment because of degree inflation. look at Germany

the largest country with the largest economy to enact free college tuition. Germany instituted a

duel education system that “holds public institutions and private corporations responsible for

educating its workforce” by offering training to students in 1 of 356 apprenticeships within

corporations that teach the necessary skills for their desired career path. doing this has lowered

the demand for college education and lowered the number of students nationwide. because of

this duel education system, they were one of three nations whose unemployment rate did not rise

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but fell during the great recession, (affordable Schools) but could we apply this to the united

states and help fight the tide of degree inflation?

There are already a couple of organizations that are doing just that with some degrees of

success. organizations like resilient coders that trains people of color in web development and

software engineering jobs in a 14-week bootcamp while most companies still throw away

applications that don’t have a bachelor’s degree. resilient coders have built a relationship with

companies such as Houghton Mifflin and even Wayfair providing training and applicants

specific to their needs. other organizations, civic leaders, and researchers have had success

persuading companies to look beyond the degrees and hire for skills big names like apple, google

and IBM have removed the bachelor’s degree requirement from many of their positions

(Lanahan 2019). so, it does seem possible for the united states to follow in Germanys footsteps

when it comes to free education, but it is going to take a lot of convincing on the part of

companies to make it possible, but it does seem possible. even an accountant for a fortune 500

company says this when asked if she thinks a four-year degree is necessary for her current

position? “No, while a degree is required for my position, I don’t think is needed for the work I

preform. most of the information I use on a day to day basis, I learned in the first 2 years of

college.” so if the skills required to be a staff accountant can be learned and honed through on

the job training isn’t that an option to look for

I understand that the Great recession had a huge impact on how companies do business.

while at the time hiring college graduates for middle skilled positions was the safe thing to do

times have changed with the unemployment getting lower and lower companies are going to

have to adapt once again if they hope to fill these positions and keep them filled now is the time

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to change how they hire. Stop using college degrees to stand in for actual skills. It hurts the ones

that could be employed, it hurts the economy and it hurts their business. It’s possible to train and

develop the required skills for these middle skilled positions without making everyone go to

college. education should be seen as a bonus on job application for these middle skilled positions

not the rule. if companies provided apprenticeship opportunities similar to how Germany does it,

they would be able to fill positions with a reliably trained workforce helping everyone involved.

so free education isn’t the answer to fix degree inflation. it is beneficial but unless the core

problem is addressed free education could lead employers to decide that a bachelor’s degree is

not enough and instead require a master’s degree for a position that our grandparents could have

gotten with only a high school diploma or in the case of my dad a good job he was able to get

without a high education making college even more necessary just to make a living wage in

today’s job market.

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Work Sited Page

Burning Glass Labor Insights. “How to Calculate Degree Gap.” Grads of Life, 2015, blogs-

images.forbes.com/gradsoflife/files/2017/10/Dismissed-by-Degrees-Figure3-

1200x538.jpg?width=960.

Lanahan, Lawrence. “What If We Hired for Skills, Not Degrees?” The Hechinger Report, 4

May 2019, hechingerreport.org/what-if-we-hired-for-skills-not-degrees/.

“NEW REPORT ON THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF DEGREE INFLATION.” Grads of Life, 2

Nov. 2017, gradsoflife.org/uncategorized/new-report-harmful-effects-degree-inflation/.

“Who Is imperiled by degree inflation?” The Hechinger Report, 2019, hechingerreport.org/wp-

content/uploads/2019/05/PRESTON-Skills-Not-Degrees-1066x0-c-default.png.

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Cooper, Preston. “How Degree Inflation Weakens The Economy.” Forbes, 8 Jan.

2018, http://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/01/08/employers-demanding-

college-degrees-weaken-the-economy/#693d73ad6b11

“UNI DOESN’T MAKE SENSE FOR US ALL.” Australian [National, Australia], 14 Nov.

2017, p. 12. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A514325181/OVIC?

u=ucinc_main&sid=OVIC&xid=7b891396. Accessed 4 June 2019.

“How Germany Made Higher Education Free.” Affordable Schools,

affordableschools.net/germany-free-education/.

Lei, Wen. “This Economist Says ‘Degree Inflation’ Is Hurting the American Job

Market.” Innovation Hub, 15 Feb.

2019, http://www.pri.org/stories/2019-02-05/economist-says-degree-inflation-hurting-

american-job-market

Hess, Frederick M., and Grant Addison. “Degree Inflation and Discrimination.” Wall Street

Journal, Apr 03, 2018.

ProQuest, https://search-proquest-com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/docview/2020702463?

accountid=2909

Bergeron, David A., and Carmel Martin. “Strengthening Our Economy Through College for

All.” How Valuable Is a College Degree?, edited by Noël Merino, Greenhaven Press,

2016. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in

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Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010971206/OVIC?

u=ucinc_main&sid=OVIC&xid=be7e2854. Accessed 4 June 2019. Originally published

in AmericanProgress.org, vol. 1, 19 Feb. 2015.

Sanders, Evan. “Free College Would Make Higher Education an Extension of High

School.” Washington Examiner, 8 Jan. 2018, http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/free-

college-would-make-higher-education-an-extension-of-high-school