For decades, prominent education and workforce leaders like my friend and colleague Mark Schneider have been beating the drum that the bachelor’s degree is not the only path to a good job. Finally, it appears students and colleges are getting the message: A new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce shows that bachelor’s degrees no longer account for the majority of undergraduate credentials awarded by colleges and universities each year. They have been overtaken by a combination of associate degrees and certificates—credentials that are faster, cheaper, and more career-focused. And this data point does not even account for the massive amount of noncredit training that takes place at community and technical colleges across the country which, by some estimates, accounts for roughly 40% of the learning that takes place at those institutions.
The Georgetown report also finds that certificates and associate degree programs are an especially common option for low-income students and older adults. On top of this, many certificates and associate degrees lead to higher earnings than many bachelor’s degrees. Associate degrees in health and certificates in STEM lead to higher earnings than a bachelor’s in education, psychology, or social work, for example.
For education consumers, these are promising trends and may signal a future where people have access to diverse pathways into good jobs and careers, including ones that are faster, cheaper, and more direct than those accessed through a bachelor’s degree. While the BA model has worked for many, it has largely failed to deliver for young adults from low-income backgrounds. The share of people from a low-income family who earn a bachelor’s degree hasn’t increased since the 1970s, despite trillions of dollars of investment in promoting access and completion in the decades since.
At Strada, we’ve taken a different approach to measuring value by asking consumers themselves to rate the value of their education. Our findings shed light on what may be driving the rise of sub-baccalaureate programs in America. Our data clearly demonstrate that education consumers from all backgrounds are looking for learning programs that are relevant, applied, and connect them directly to a good job.
Education consumers rate vocational and technical programs like certificates the highest among undergraduate programs. People with certificates or certifications in particular report that their credentials make them an attractive candidate, increase their earning power, and lead to greater rates of career and life satisfaction. It’s no surprise, then, that certificate programs in particular have been on the rise: 94% of certificates are career-oriented, according to the Georgetown report.
At the same time, the bachelor’s degree plays an outsized role in hiring. Employers say they’re not hiring degrees, that they want workers with skills and work experience who can do the job. Credentials, field of study, and the like are less important, so they say. Nevertheless, large employers continue to use the bachelor’s degree as a criterion to filter job candidates, shutting people with less education out from good jobs that they may be qualified to do.
In a USA Today column published in 2016, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds proposed banning the “college degree box” in hiring decisions. As learning providers continue to diversify the suite of pathways, programs, and credentials they’re offering, perhaps the time has come to reconsider his idea.
