With the current economy’s condition, soaring tuition and draining student loan debt, millions of households are reconsidering sending their kids to college and wondering if it’s even worth it as companies re-evaluate their hiring requirements.
As reported on News Nation, Major organizations such as Google, IBM, and Tesla have withdrawn the requirement for college degrees as college enrollment repeatedly drops.
A recent development from Harvard Business Review and Emsi Burning Glass, a leading labor market data company, corporations and organizations are getting rid of the requirements for various middle-skill and even higher-skill positions. Between 2017 and 2020, more than 51 million jobs were posted and analyzed for this study.
This new change by companies rearranges the so-called “degree inflation” craze that gained popularity once the Great Recession hit. While many jobs remained the same, many employers decided to add degree requirements to job descriptions that didn’t need them in the past.
Many companies focus on skills-based hiring to expand the talent pool in preference of a four-year degree. While enrollment at higher education colleges and universities declines nationwide, the number of prospective student applications is still drastically climbing.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, annual enrollment at postsecondary colleges has dropped more than 14% nationally from Fall 2010 to 2020. Compared to 10 years ago, that’s realistically four million fewer students.
Today, more than 40 million Americans, including millions of senior citizens, are in student loan debt.
Various universities are becoming more aware and, as a result, are launching programs to encourage kids to attend college. Recently, Princeton University announced its plan to cover college costs for students in households earning less than $100,000 annually.
As reported by Princeton, approximately 83% of their recent graduates are debt free. They also shared that 62% of undergraduate students already receive some financial aid.
Are you seeing a real return on investment on the rest of the world, paying sky-high tuition costs? It depends on the academic major chosen by the student.
“This is a very vast and wide world. I mean we need someone for everything like there needs to be someone with a college degree to be a doctor,” Anna Tillisch, a college sophomore, noted.
So if you’re not entering the medical field, do you need a college degree?
“In a knowledge economy like ours, based largely on things like tech, you need some people to continue to go to college. You don’t need everybody to go to college,” Marcus told News Nation.
As college tuition costs increase, approximately 45% of incoming first-year students are anticipated to graduate in four years; six years has become more prevalent.
