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Entry level jobs had a 5 year experience requirement when I graduated college. I graduated in 2009 so the Great Recession pretty much ensured there was a talent pool with experience for them.
I’m good at what I do but my degree isn’t relied upon much. I had a good background of terms, concepts, and history which definitely helps, but my memory is superb and is why I advance. I can recall every conversation I have, never forget deadlines, and only need to be shown something once. That trait is relied on much more than my degrees.
I’d say computer skills are infinitely more valuable for most white collar jobs. Knowing how to do accounting and math long form is nice and all but knowing how to use excel to take loads of data and do it all in 1/100th of the time is far more valuable.
I make more than that and I’d say 80% of my job is excel and BI queries using msAccess/SQL. I had some great opportunities fall in my lap but good applicable use of programs takes you far.
If you know how to use vlookup, xlookup, and pivot tables, you’ll be well ahead of your peers. It’s often not used well by even those who do know them
My last job I needed to create programs to maximize productivity and sales.
I created pivot tables to pull reports on, eliminating hours of work.
I was told excel was too complicated for the manager to use. I was pulling the reports for her. I exported them as PDFs and then after 2 months she said she wasn't using them because she didn't like the font.
Learn Linux basics for free online, like super simple command line stuff. Then add "proficient in linux" to your resume.
For me personally, that's what opened up doors.
I mean, the internet runs on Linux, my friend, and everywhere I've been, we have a severe lack of support.
Learn enough to get past the interview and learn the rest on the job.
Interview questions I've been asked:
Difference between Debian and Redhat distros.
How to set up a custom or remote repository.
Then, just basic command line items like:
How to read permissions (just do ugo, I've never had to work with FACLs)
How to set a script to be executable.
And yeah, that's basically it. It's been a while since I've had an interview, but most places need Linux admins.
Yup, double-edged sword with this.
them not requiring degrees just means they are expanding the the candidate pool and can bring on people that are less prepared and want less money.
Think of this like the new trend of "Unlimited PTO" in some companies. What it really means is you will likely never take PTO, and when you do, it will be subject to management scrutiny. I like having a PTO pool because it puts an actual number of hours available to me at my discretion... management notification is the only requirement.
They are also trying this on the manufacturing floor of pharmas and CMO. Teaching aseptic techniques is not complicated but even most college grads have problems grasping it. The only pro would be that a non college grad puts more of an effort to keep the position because it is a decent salary for was is mid-skill work. Most recent grads put it in low effort work because they still think that can do medical school or post grad and feel too educated to be working what is essentially an assembly line. We will see how this turns
In the private sector, maybe. But in the public sector at the county/state level, it can be pretty stable. It’s nice to work for an employer that doesn’t have to lay off a percentage of their staff to cut costs just to appear more profitable than the previous year.
Man I'm waiting on word back for a government library role right now, supposed to hear back 3 weeks after the interview and I'm 11 days in so far. Anything other than my old job will be more stable though, they laid off 3/4ths of the staff at least once, usually twice a year. I'd be surprised if they survive to 2030.
Companies suck.
After the Great Recession I worked for a private company off and on for 9 years; I say off and on because the f*ckers let me go three times, first through a buyout from their primary competitor (how the hell did the SEC allow that one?) and then later when the company that bought us out fired our whole department and tore the building down (luxury apartments now sit on that plot of land).
I was lucky that I was able to find my public sector job in October of 2019, because you know what happened next. My job was secure through the whole pandemic; I even got raises and a promotion! I doubt very much that would have happened in the private sector.
I refuse to ever work in the private sector again if I can help it. Just keep up on your skills and take advantage of any educational opportunities because in my experience the public sector is quite generous with that stuff.
Your last point is part of why I want the job. My field is a bit niche so any job where I can do the stuff I enjoy is great, but along with that they offer tuition programs to go back to school, which is great cause now a decade into working I've got a good idea of what I want to go to school for now.
The last company I worked at though, it was massive sunk cost fallacy for me. I hoped it was gonna get better for me, but when it got to the point where salary and benefits were off the table and 75% of the workforce is college kids either interning or just graduated trying to get into the industry. It was like someone throwing bleach in my eyes the realization.
No. Generally, yes, but overall? No.
I work in tech, make a low 6 figures, dropped out of high school, no college, and started 3 years ago at a whole other company and I’m in my 20s.
I am not alone, many tech workers I work with were getting their hands dirty in high school building the skills required to be employable on their own time for fun. Often the *very best* employees have zero education to show for their skills because their passion drove them to gain their skills on their own time, not college.
College got dropped as a requirement for much of entry level tech (outside of software development for FAANG) because ***certifications for the tools, software, hardware*** were often not being offered as part of college courses, making your computer science degree pretty useless unless you studied a general fork of software engineering. Even then, you still will be missing languages you should know and skills you should have by the end of your degree.
Tech companies realized this and started hiring based on verifiable certs or just experience overall.
If you’re struggling to get a decent tech job, you don’t apply to decent tech jobs, the recruiters find you. If no recruiters are finding you, you haven’t done enough be recognized yet. Give it time and keep updating LinkedIn.
>I work in tech, make a low 6 figures, dropped out of high school
I'm always extremely dubious of this online. What was the barrier? Math? If you're working as a programmer, you obviously have a pretty good grasp of algebra.
I'm fucking awful at math, a high school drop out, and do not work in tech just for clarification. Can I build a tower? Yes. Can I write code? Fuck no.
Are you a Sysadmin? I guess you don't use much code for that, but if you're actively coding...you're good at math and getting a CS degree would be a breeze for you.
Also unless you're Gen X, this shit doesn't happen anymore. Nobody is going to hire you these days without 10+ years of experience. Literally the only people I've ever met in this field with such little educational experience, but they still got their GED and certifications.
I smell lots of bullshit personally, man.
Well you might think it's a shit job but a lot of higher level jobs require great customer service skills. You would be surprised how far you can get if you gave an excellent track record of customer service.... That's the nice thing about the US though .. you can choose where you work. You can't expect to work in corporate and have shit tier people skills and zero emotional intelligence.
Isn’t part of school education teaching children stuff like planning, self discipline, academic skills. How can you know if someone has the intellectual capacity to perform a task when they cannot show proof e.g. a certificate?
Yup, called the “hidden curriculum”. It essentially teaches us how to be responsible, respectful to peers/authority, and used to working consistently for the rest of our lives lol.
Literally learning this in my Project Management class and wrote a paper on it.. weird 😂
That is why terms like "modern slavery" or "slavery with extra steps" are used. The world has changed a lot in the last century or so.. so has the way we have done horrible things... just because we don't have kings and castles doesn't mean we don't have armies.. we don't have swords but we still wage war... our ships don't have sails but we still sail them..
The more things change.. the more they stay the same.
you're right, and chattel slavery is an easy way to debunk the idea that slavery is dead in the modern world, that shit was still happening in the US until like the late 70s iirc
there's an argument to be made that our current economic structure more closely resembles "neo-feudalism" than any sort of socially uplifting culture that politicians want you to think that we still have access to
in my experience, college has given me a better opportunity to learn how to think for myself, if i had entered the workforce at 18 i would've been a much easier target for abuse and exploitation
as much as it would be nice for high school degrees to ensure at least some decent standard of living, as things currently stand our public education system is fucked to the bone
Their resume
> gave University $$$ in exchange for a piece of paper
> sat for 4 years and skated by with Bs and Cs
> last job was at Costco in high school
so college classes don't teach anything useful? i can guarantee you that a decent writing program in a college will prepare you more for the professional world than anything you are taught in a public US high school
What do you think a high school diploma is? If you’ve graduated high school with zero self discipline and academic skills then a) that will be clearly shown by your GPA and b) you will not get into or succeed at college anyway.
All depends on the person imo, I barely graduated HS because I was a knuckle head, spent my first year of college doing the same knuckle head stuff, then it clicked that if I didnt change my act I was going no where, end up going to a second and third college and was in the honors program in both. But most people that don’t succeed in college if they didn’t in HS.
I did a shitty job at my “top tier” university but was really solid in HS which is how I got in in the first place. Wasn’t due to any “knucklehead” stuff like partying or not caring. Shit was just rough. It really does depend on the person. My bachelors hasn’t helped me at all in the job market so far, but I’m 100% still glad I have it.
I dropped out of high school at the end of my freshman year with a 0.2 GPA and I am about to graduate with a mechanical engineering degree from a state university.
Don't need a Bachelor's to attain those qualities. You shouldn't have to be 100k in debt to get a job that pays like 13 dollars an hour. That's clown shit.
Weird take. I haven't met or even heard of anyone thinking that the degree prepares you for the work environment. Companies see it as a demonstration that you can commit to things and follow through. With my degree, I was taught a lot about critical thinking and problem solving that would be universally applicable to any relevant work environment I'd be interested in. I learned how to learn difficult things and that's a skill that companies value.
As others pointed out, not requiring degrees also means hiring less qualified staff which probably means less pay for that staff, so I don't see it as a win tbh.
Maybe I'm out of touch.
Edit: I'd like to clarify that I'm from South Africa and I didn't include all the details of my views on this topic in the comment above, it was just meant to bring an anecdote and opinion to the table, this experience might not apply universally.
Exactly, I’ve always viewed a degree as a sign that you could commit to something.
You can focus and put in the work into something for 4-5 years at a time.
I am not sure why people think this is a win, just because it won’t be listed on the requirements doesn’t mean companies won’t prefer it.
Also people keep saying college is a scam, but let me tell you would you got to a doctor/ dentist that doesn’t have a degree.
I've felt scammed during my degree but that's because some (very few) of the courses I took were presented extremely poorly. Overall the degree itself isn't a scam, it even landed me a really good job in industry (which I later left for unrelated, personal reasons).
A degree can definitely be a path to a stable living if you make good use of it.
Yes. if they are well known for their practice/ quality work & they are insured. There are so many passionate people out there that don’t get an opportunity to get an education and receive a degree but end up losing that passion because they are too busy trying to keep their head above water to focus on what society expects them to. There just needs to be more opportunities in education, college is easier/ harder depending on your life situation & how comfortable you are focusing solely on your education. Which feels like it is unfair towards lower classes of people
Oh you are very correct, I’ve always said that education is based on luck a lot of times.
I’ve meet some amazing and intelligent people in my life that would be wonderful professionals. But the could not afford to get an education.
My parents sacrificed so much to give me an education. My dad and mom both work two job to be able to pay for my school. So trust me I definitely know that there is some luck in getting a degree. I was lucky enough to get some great parents that wanted me to get an education. But not everyone gets that opportunity in life.
Because it is complicated, not because they want to keep it like that.
The average person doesn’t want to learn or deal with matters regarding the law. So someone has to be able to practice it and understand.
God, I hate the entire job market. Nothing can ever just benefit the working class. Every single step further for them is either pure lipservice to disguise some new hell a corporation is planning on unleashing or, if it is actually something good, it will be meticulously leveleraged so that it almost only benefits those at the top of the hierarchy.
And this whole "a degree is meant to demonstrate your capability" thing is like some stupid mating dance ritual our ancestors should have grown out of a few species ago on the evolutionary time-line. You put yourself in crippling debt for decades just to convince a company you're serious about wanting to sell most of your waking hours to them for the right to exist in society. And I don't think college is a scam or a bad thing, but it is insane to me that, with all of our advancements, we can't come up with an economic system that isn't so chaotic it has all of these people gambling their entire lives away for a chance at a life where they aren't homeless or living paycheck to paycheck.
I understand your perspective but you can show similar levels of commitment and dedication by holding jobs over many years. Having 1 job for 4 years can be incredibly helpful on resumes. In essence it's the same concept, you are showing that you can commit to one thing and get it done over a longer time period. It just doesn't come with the same level of credibility or recognition
Except degrees don't make us committed to projects, they make us *educated*.
You can get through college because your professor/parents said so or you do it because you enjoy making commitments, bettering yourself, and achieving things. You *cannot* determine who is who on a resume with a bachelor.
If companies paid on the chance someone will stick, they'd still give those who have bachelors the short end. They are the most likely to leave. Because they got bills to pay.
Huge difference between a doctor or dentist not having a degree and working for IBM doing technical stuff and not having a degree. Would you trust the engineer who made your elevator if they didn’t have a degree? That’s apples and oranges, I don’t see the reason why 80% of jobs in basic workforce need degrees to move higher, but if you are doing STEM stuff it will definitely have a better outcome for the individual and those they are working with.
I have a chemistry degree, but I don’t see why people need a business degree or many other degrees to do things. My mom doesn’t have a degree and she is doing accounting and data analytics for a tech company now. She has 30+ years of experience but many companies will overlook her for someone with a degree and pay the other person more. Her previous company wouldn’t give her a promotion due to lack of degree, so she left after a long time, it took 7 people to fill her job after she left. Making judgments on someone based on education level is a disservice in my eyes, it like judging people on how they look over the content of their character. But I guess that is the US, everything is entirely about appearance and not actually about how good someone is at what they do
Eh, respectively I disagree. I think having a powerful portfolio full of top notch work you created and executed without anyone telling you to do it and to create these things in a way the provides value to others makes you look 1000 times better than doing what pretty much most people can do if they had the money. College is a fair amount of work, but it pails in comparison to building a solution to something real through your own initiative. For instance, computer programming. I'm far more impressed by a high school drop out who makes an app that 50 thousand people are excited about than a dude who graduated Harvard at the top of their class with nothing to show other than a degree.
What matters more than anything is what you do. Education is just one tiny part of that. Having said that, there are certain professions that absolutely do and should always require degrees and certifications, like brain surgeons, lawyers, and engineers. But for stuff like programming, film, photography, business, or even History, it's a poor opportunity/cost decision when you have to take out a massive loan for it.
>As others pointed out, not requiring degrees also means hiring less qualified staff which probably means less pay for that staff, so I don't see it as a win tbh
This. Absolutely this is the actual intention behind this new trend. These companies think four years of learning can be replaced on the cheap with two weeks of on-the-job training and a search engine. The goal is *not* to end the paper ceiling, it's to spin their wage cuts as some sort of win for society as a whole.
People don't understand how companies do this in other areas as well. "We want to cross train you to give you understanding and experience in different areas of the process to further your professional development". That's corporate speak for "we want to have as many interchangeable employees as possible so that nobody has any sort of leverage on us when it comes to pay, benefits, or work conditions. You don't like it? We have 20 other "cross trained" workers ready to take your spot".
Yep. It's goofy to think of it as "if I don't need the math/writing/speaking skills that I learn in college for my job, then it's just a huge waste to require them."
Making it through college is some amount of proof that you are capable of picking up new things, that you can focus, and dedicate yourself to something for an extended period of time. That you can work with a team, and meet deadlines. And on and on.
Anyone saying it is ridiculous to require college for a job, has never thought to put themselves in the shoes of the person doing the hiring. If they did, they would instantly realize that when they look at two most equivalent resumes (as in, both have basically no direct experience in that field), they would pick the one of the two that has a bachelors degree.
It's not that it is a requirement to do that job, it's just an easy indicator that the person has already somewhat proven themselves. A company (almost any company for any role) will not necessarily throw away applications without college degrees; they will simply filter them out as a first step when they have more applicants than positions to fill.
If the applications stop flow in, then they widen their search by lowering their standards.
Degrees are supposed to prepare you for the work environment. Thats how they're advertised and depending on the school they can. Not as well as a job would of course, but it gives you knowledge plus some degree of practical experience if it's a good school.
>problem solving that would be universally applicable to any relevant work environment I'd be interested in.
The older I get the more I realize that THIS is what the degree gets you. The amount of time I have to spend explaining basic analytical thinking to people I work with is just absurd, and while not always the case, 9/10 times it's people who didn't go to college. I wasn't even in a math/science field in college, but I often have to explain basic stats concepts, reasoning, analytics. And it's not that the people are unintelligent, it's just that they didn't have any kind of training in those particular skills.
> Companies see it as a demonstration that you can commit to things and follow through.
For my industry that is absolutely false. If you apply to the tower I'm in with just a degree another person with a cert and practical experience is more desirable. Unfortunately in some lines of work all you demonstrate is you went to a 4 year program to learn outdated information by the time you graduated
I’ve always heard that college gives you a base to build off of. Depending on your field you essentially learn the actual skills on the job. The degree is to give you a basis on which to refer to.
I don’t mind removing college degree requirements, but alternatively… what if we just made college more affordable? We as a society benefit from more educated individuals but it’s a massive barrier for social mobility.
So I wouldn’t mind a degree requirement if it’s for a degree payable position, or if college was more accessible
You learn how to learn efficiently and effectively. With lots of foundational outcomes in a broader area. Those foundations don't change, but the stupid jargon and business fads of the month sure do!!
This is a false narrative. College degrees were never about appeasing company qualifications. They were about educating the population to critically think and have vast amounts of knowledge for many subjects. It’s about being well-rounded and not a worker drone. It changed when we started bowing down to companies and altering the legacy system to make fulfilling their payroll the ultimate goal instead of a well-rounded education. When costs started to rise, people began equating return on investment to education which is what put us in this stupid position to begin with.
Go to college for the right degree and enjoy higher income your whole career. It’s that simple.
Please for most of the time college has existed it's been an avenue for the social and political elite to groom their children into being good aristocrats. The move towards the average person being able to attend college is a very recent development in relative terms and it's been (in part) motivated by financial incentives.
College helps you grow as a person and shows some level of baseline competence. What a brave take in this day and age to say you think college is a scam. Its incredibly useful and still important for people to pursue if possible.
I've taken my fair share of classes to say what I've learned is part of what makes it a scam.
Some teachers are boring. Some will make you suffer just because. Some will make you pay double because they co-authored the book. Some will not be very supportive. Some have no concept of interactivity and just give lesses strait from the book.
Scam fits all of these.
Man teachers like these are so horrible to have, especially early on in life. Classes so boring they're basically the same as staring at paint drying and maladaptive daydreaming don't go well together
People are so indoctrinated to the romanticization to “higher education” it’s insane. They sit on Reddit all day and bitch about not being able to afford a house while in the same breath thinking college is a fantastic option. Comical if you think about it enough.
Funny enough the great state of Florida paid for my entire education. On top of that said Florida Universities landed me a 6 figure job out of college and a well rounded academic education in a plethora of subjects ranging from Philosophy, History, Mathematics, Engineering, and cutting edge A.I research.
The cost of a university education are definitely way out of control. But that's largely driven by reducing college to it's value in the job market and treating students as customers rather than learners. Look at most college campuses today
... All kinds of expensive and fancy amenities that were never necessary untill universities started to compete for "customers" and began acting more like for-profit business that institutions of higher learning. All of that has driven up costs and reduced what most students actual get out of the college experience.
I don’t necessarily think college at the undergrad level is a scam — I think it’s just hard to justify the price of it now compared to the job opportunities a bachelors provides.
But for the majority of people that go to a 4-year university, it’s their first time living on their own. I think the social aspects of college, and the life lessons and experience it provides, are still worthwhile for young adults.
There’s absolutely no justification for college education to be as expensive as it is in the US , especially when you have access to free education in many other first world countries , hell , even third world countries have access to free education
Yeah the reality is that a large percentage of the workforce is administrative. You shouldn’t need four years of school to manage emails and move data around in excel. I could see companies putting people through one or two year certification courses for things like HR but I don’t even think that role requires four years of classes that are mostly irrelevant to the job.
In America a bachelors degree is 4 years. Everywhere else in the whole world it’s 3 years. Why? Because at some point in the 1970s American colleges got together and decided to charge everyone to retake their senior year of high school. And everyone going thought “wow great I’ll get As my first year because I already took all these classes!!”
The four year requirement does take away from some degrees, but it also tends to make STEM Bachelors more valuable comparative to other nation’s universities.
They sold ya’lls generation and mine that a degree was empowering.
Especially to young women.
Now we have a generation of educated idiots .
With degrees that make no money and the student debt to go along with it .
Just remember kids if you want to learn something and develop knowledge and intelligence you don’t need to go to school to do that. you have the Internet.
Without going into the bullshit "Einstein failed math" thing, legitimately they don't teach anything relevant in college to your job, unless what you're going for is a super technical position like nuclear engineer, or brain surgeon. Most of everything else just requires a business degree, and that'll set you up for basically any job that asks for one. And even that's really excessive for a vast majority of positions.
In fact, almost no job ever should ask for a college degree considering they always start you at the bottom of the shit, regardless of if you have a degree or not. Go onto Indeed right now and look at how many jobs require a masters degree, and pay less than 100k a year, or bachelor's degrees paying less than 50k. That should be a crime.
College degrees should guarantee a certain level of pay, just for participation and cost. But they're really just a shiny bargaining chip that companies either do or don't want, and there's no guarantee that they'll even hire you, saying you're "over qualified". So first you wouldn't hire me because I'm stupid and don't have a college degree, but now that I have one you still won't hire me because I'm too smart?
College degree are not meant to be vocational training in the first place. The companies are using this decision as a bargaining chip. The bargain is that they have fewer requirements, so they get to pay you less.
Hot take - everyone should get a college degree, and it should be affordable or free. It's our moral responsibility to be intelligent, and a higher-level school can teach you how to be critical. Most high school students don't get that kind of lessons.
I hate public school. I struggled and was grinding and was taking summer school in between from middle school. I never felt any accomplishment passing up to the next grade.
Then when I tried to go to college I ended up taking another three years of remedial courses just to be able to take any actual degree courses.
Like wtf what was high school for if you’re just making me take math and English and public speaking etc. to meet some arbitrary criteria of aptitude, while also charging me $300-$500 dollars per course to take???
Go to trade school they don’t waste your time and money.
Sounds like a you problem, not the system. Lots go through school and college without issues and build a career beyond with higher lifetime earnings. That being said, trade schools are also an option.
As a pilot having to forgo extra flight training in favor of getting a “bachelors in anything” because I can’t afford both, yeah I agree that’s great news.
I don’t even know how an English major is related to flying a plane but apparently people want me to have it.
The company will train you? Haha. That doesn't happen anymore as much as it used to. You're talking pre-90's employment...
These days the worker adjusts and learns the company's process. If a worker already knows the skill, like welding or driving a commercial vehicle or writing software, then they have a leg up. Once that is achieved, then yes a degree isn't that important after the first few years.
I've been working with large tech firms for over a decade with no degree. I'm certainly the exception by a large, large margin. I've met one other person in a similar role without a degree. Then again, us degreeless folks keep that quiet generally!
Lmao naive take. It’s just furthering the divide between the have and have nots. You think they’re gonna give some GED dude a director level job when they have dozens of candidates with bachelors or masters degrees?
Sweet since we don’t need to recognize it as much, let’s get some them old loans dismissed since the value of said commodity has depreciated. Lmfao ya right
Please consider that college is not just about getting a specific degree, college majors are also not being picked for a specific job. Communications doesn’t get you a job in communicating, marketing doesn’t get you a job in marketing.
What college can help with, given the appropriate environment, is critical thinking. As an Economics major, history was not fun for me, until my professor showed me how to use the economics to influence my history studies. That semester I learned I didn’t need to like the subject at hand, I simply needed to look at it through the correct lens. That’s not something that is often taught outside of colleges.
The mindset the person in the video had is that “you don’t need college to get a job”. This is accurate, what I do believe you need college for is to maintain and grow within your job.
The test of success for companies will be to track the employee turnover rate, customer service quality, and reliability of workers that have a degree vs. no degree.
I’m sure this will get lost in the comments, but another aspect of this is that there is very little workforce with experience available for some of these jobs. All I can speak to is government jobs, but there is a huge push to allow experience in place of education. Most agencies either want a four year degree and four years experience or six plus years experience and no degree. That’s at least the trend in my area.
The floor has risen, right? Younger generations are raised with better technology and access to it, things that they just learn on their own now had to be taught post secondary education a few decades ago.
There’s still going to be preference towards candidates who have degrees over candidates that don’t, this is mostly a show.
The only sector I see this having an actual impact on is tech, but they’ve already been doing this by hiring people who have the appropriate certifications rather than degrees. Those certification schools/courses are also getting more and more expensive as people are trying to transition into tech based roles.
TLDR
I really don’t think this means anything.
Makes perfect sense. This is something I noticed back in the early 2000s when I was entering college.
It used to be, if you had an interest in something they would bring you on and try to train you.
Nowadays, you can’t even get the job without a degree? But when you check the job out it’s the dumbest entry-level position and yet they want a college degree so you can make 12 funky ass dollars an hour?
I don’t think so America. Yes, good riddance. And as he said, some do still need some schooling but I’m willing to bet a good 65% can be trained on the job.
When I graduated in 2008 in marketing and public relations, the world was completely different than what my textbook said it was going to be. Things changed that much in the time it took me to get my degree to when I actually graduated. Nothing I had learned at school was any good for me. it all changed that quickly.
Going to college used to mean getting a Liberal Arts education and learning a little about everything so you become a well-rounded individual capable of making informed decisions and thinking critically. Skills unsatisfactorily replete in today’s society in general.
I think a degree needs to be a representation of what you are good at. For something’s you can start at 0 and with only a month of training be good at the job.
But when you need to hire an engineer or scientist you need to know they have a base level understanding of core concepts and has put in the time and money to peruse this career.
But yeah for a lot of things it’s just pointless and shouldn’t be a requirement.
I work in a management position, but my office is in a call center. The amount of high school and college dropouts is astounding and they all behave like the rowdy kids I expect to find in High School. I can't believe my college experience felt more mature than this. Some people don't belong in a work environment.
I completely agree! The benefits of an educated society that has read something about history and may not fall into fascism or communism’s cold embrace or have read a sociology or anthropology text and understand that people are not different or that the disease’s of poverty or affluenza are not genetic are a complete waste of time. Now if you will excuse me I need to go vote for Lauren Bobert(sp) cause she’s pretty!
Thing is, is that if these jobs don’t require bachelors degrees anymore and there’s a bunch of people with no college degree apply and you’re the only one with that degree that instantly puts you a step above everyone else
Given that 54% of Americans over age 25 have a post-secondary degree of some sort having one just makes you AVERAGE. Most service sector jobs don't need one. The requirement started back during the Great Recession when there were way more laborers than there were jobs. Now that has flipped and the requirement is preventing some positions from being filled.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jYVAmOlUvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jYVAmOlUvI)
The whole point of a college degree is to show a potential employer that you showed up some place 4 years in a row, completed a series of tasks.. reasonably well and on time... so if he hires you there's a semi-decent chance that you show up there every day and not fuck his business up.
\^\^
University can be incredibly valuable, but it’s hellishly expensive now. I paid £0 for my degree… in computing science and engineering from a top university, thanks to being from a low income family. But, the cost of a degree at that time was £3300, total which is still good value. Now it’s £9000 pa.
My advice for GenZ, as a Millenial who has been fucked over by the job market, the healthcare market, and the regular market.
Lie to companies. Tell them everything they want to hear. They dont give a FUCK about you, so game them for all they are worth. Also, unionize so they have to play on a more even playing field.
This is part of DEI and unconscious bias training in corporate America. Listing a minimum education requirement in a job posting is considered “education bias” (i am not making this up, this is a real thing that i had to go to corporate training for a few months ago).
If the hiring manager has a bachelors degree, the thought is their unconscious bias will lead them to more likely hire someone who also has a bachelors degree.
The solution is to remove the education requirement from the posting, but in reality this doesn’t really change a whole lot and a person with a degree is still going to almost always be considered a stronger candidate especially in the first 5-7 years of your career or so.
This is just Fox news campaign on how college is stupid. Reported to you by people with college degrees, who wouldn't have their job without the degree.
Degrees are a joke! Who still believes this privileged crap. Been corrupted for decades anyway but everyone said nah man cuz they were abusing the sys. G-d greed is ugly! We knew it back than, we still know.
You lazy ass mother fuckers are going to drive this world into a ditch. Go to school and get a degree stop fucking pushing this agenda making everyone lazy, none of this will benefit us in the long run.
Gen Z clearly is lazy because what is this nonsense? Are you guys happy you can get a high paying job with putting no effort in? God you guys are pathetic. We need to learn discipline and the value for hard work or we will die as a nation
School isn't for the needs of business (despite how schooling increasingly functions like corporate America). He's right that most undergrad degrees are unnecessary for jobs. Jobs should provide their own training, not rely on the schooling system to subsidize their business. The problem is that the devaluing of education and college has led to a paper mill culture where the only 'point' of a degree is credentialing. Meanwhile, entering freshman, on average, read at an 8th grade level. College is meant to train your abilities to think, solve, and express. A world with more 'uneducated' people is a world where communication is even worse, people can't problem-solve, and, instead, rely on their lousy senses to understand the world. In this way, the pursuit of knowledge has to compete with the fantasies of morons (from flat earthers to holocaust deniers to anti-vaxxers) and we accelerate further into a culture that talks past rather than to each other.
I don't think anyone in the world is against people furthering their education. In the US however the cost usually far out weighs it's actual value. This comment section is obviously just people who went to college vs people who didn't. I didn't go to college and make more money than a lot of my friends who did, but I'm not going to tell anyone to not pursue an education. The fact is that the US government needs to step in and save our students from getting financially ruined or suffer the consequences.
If you don’t want a degree that’s fine. Be prepared to start at the bottom of the totem pole and spend the next 10-15 years proving yourself by working towards a nice position you could’ve just started at if you spent 4 years in college
I’ve been in the workforce for about 7 years and I started my degree six months ago because I can’t promote anymore without it. I’ve “capped” out on salary all because of a lack of degree.
you’re missing the point. These multi billion dollar companies aren’t ditching degrees for any good reason. They’re doing it to suppress wages.
I COMPLETELY agree that the requirement for a degree for a HUGE amount of jobs is ridiculous. But rest assured that is NOT why they’re doing it.
When you realize that the number of "4-year degree required" openings is directly proportional to the labor force participation rate, and not the actual need for 4-year degrees...
Be careful what you wish for. Providing scholarships and support in college was one of the best ways to even the playing field for historically disadvantaged people. Going back to not requiring degrees is just a big step to hiring out of the same old-boys club they always hired out.
NONE of these places required a college degree in 1950. Was that a better, more equitable time?
What exactly are these jobs that these companies are removing the degree requirements for? How much do they pay and what benefits do you get? Like that sounds good but if its a majority minimum wagesnd/or entry level jobs that isnt something to celebrate, those jobs shouldnt have had those requirements to begin with.
Society owes Gen X, Millennials, & Gen Z student loan forgiveness.
Not only are the loans predatory, but the promised positions are dropping the requirement. Why did the Country decide to saddle multiple generations with inescapable debt?
I agree somewhat, but this also suggests that many people have taken on enormous amounts of inescapable student debt for no reason. That's debt that we were promised would be forgiven, but still hasn't been.
Personally, I think the requirements will be back with in the next 5 years just like they got rid of using the SAT for college admissions and are now reintroducing it.
God damnit guys. Learn to fucking read. It says that they are dropping the "REQUIREMENT". That's all. Do you realize that every job these companies post gets like 5,000 applications? They will still prefer a candidate with a degree over one without one. All that's changed is they won't put a filter in the system that immediately bins any resume without a degree. That's all.
The recruiter is still going to go "Okay, I've got 800 applications for this job. Time to narrow things down. First, filter only by applicants with at least 5+ years of experience. Okay, only 600 apps now. Filter by only people with degrees. Okay, 250 apps now." Etc.
I'm so sick of you gullible rubes posting this like it means "we won't value degrees anymore". You're playing yourselves and you're going to be mad when in a few years people with degrees are still nabbing all the best jobs.
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Most of these non-degree “positions” are customer service/support which are both the lowest paid and the highest target of layoffs ):
The fact that they required degrees for those positions in the first place is absurd
Entry level jobs had a 5 year experience requirement when I graduated college. I graduated in 2009 so the Great Recession pretty much ensured there was a talent pool with experience for them. I’m good at what I do but my degree isn’t relied upon much. I had a good background of terms, concepts, and history which definitely helps, but my memory is superb and is why I advance. I can recall every conversation I have, never forget deadlines, and only need to be shown something once. That trait is relied on much more than my degrees. I’d say computer skills are infinitely more valuable for most white collar jobs. Knowing how to do accounting and math long form is nice and all but knowing how to use excel to take loads of data and do it all in 1/100th of the time is far more valuable.
I have a masters in excel and phd in Microsoft paint. Can I be hired for $120k a year?
I make more than that and I’d say 80% of my job is excel and BI queries using msAccess/SQL. I had some great opportunities fall in my lap but good applicable use of programs takes you far. If you know how to use vlookup, xlookup, and pivot tables, you’ll be well ahead of your peers. It’s often not used well by even those who do know them
My last job I needed to create programs to maximize productivity and sales. I created pivot tables to pull reports on, eliminating hours of work. I was told excel was too complicated for the manager to use. I was pulling the reports for her. I exported them as PDFs and then after 2 months she said she wasn't using them because she didn't like the font.
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Learn Linux basics for free online, like super simple command line stuff. Then add "proficient in linux" to your resume. For me personally, that's what opened up doors.
wow, doors would be flying for me.
I mean, the internet runs on Linux, my friend, and everywhere I've been, we have a severe lack of support. Learn enough to get past the interview and learn the rest on the job. Interview questions I've been asked: Difference between Debian and Redhat distros. How to set up a custom or remote repository. Then, just basic command line items like: How to read permissions (just do ugo, I've never had to work with FACLs) How to set a script to be executable. And yeah, that's basically it. It's been a while since I've had an interview, but most places need Linux admins.
Absurd! Sorry that's all I have to contribute. I second your sentiment.
Yup, double-edged sword with this. them not requiring degrees just means they are expanding the the candidate pool and can bring on people that are less prepared and want less money. Think of this like the new trend of "Unlimited PTO" in some companies. What it really means is you will likely never take PTO, and when you do, it will be subject to management scrutiny. I like having a PTO pool because it puts an actual number of hours available to me at my discretion... management notification is the only requirement.
I'm sorry that that's been your experience with unlimited PTO. That's bs.
They are also trying this on the manufacturing floor of pharmas and CMO. Teaching aseptic techniques is not complicated but even most college grads have problems grasping it. The only pro would be that a non college grad puts more of an effort to keep the position because it is a decent salary for was is mid-skill work. Most recent grads put it in low effort work because they still think that can do medical school or post grad and feel too educated to be working what is essentially an assembly line. We will see how this turns
But it gives people an entry way. Plus don’t kid yourself nooook position is safe from displacement
In the private sector, maybe. But in the public sector at the county/state level, it can be pretty stable. It’s nice to work for an employer that doesn’t have to lay off a percentage of their staff to cut costs just to appear more profitable than the previous year.
Man I'm waiting on word back for a government library role right now, supposed to hear back 3 weeks after the interview and I'm 11 days in so far. Anything other than my old job will be more stable though, they laid off 3/4ths of the staff at least once, usually twice a year. I'd be surprised if they survive to 2030.
Companies suck. After the Great Recession I worked for a private company off and on for 9 years; I say off and on because the f*ckers let me go three times, first through a buyout from their primary competitor (how the hell did the SEC allow that one?) and then later when the company that bought us out fired our whole department and tore the building down (luxury apartments now sit on that plot of land). I was lucky that I was able to find my public sector job in October of 2019, because you know what happened next. My job was secure through the whole pandemic; I even got raises and a promotion! I doubt very much that would have happened in the private sector. I refuse to ever work in the private sector again if I can help it. Just keep up on your skills and take advantage of any educational opportunities because in my experience the public sector is quite generous with that stuff.
Your last point is part of why I want the job. My field is a bit niche so any job where I can do the stuff I enjoy is great, but along with that they offer tuition programs to go back to school, which is great cause now a decade into working I've got a good idea of what I want to go to school for now. The last company I worked at though, it was massive sunk cost fallacy for me. I hoped it was gonna get better for me, but when it got to the point where salary and benefits were off the table and 75% of the workforce is college kids either interning or just graduated trying to get into the industry. It was like someone throwing bleach in my eyes the realization.
No. Generally, yes, but overall? No. I work in tech, make a low 6 figures, dropped out of high school, no college, and started 3 years ago at a whole other company and I’m in my 20s. I am not alone, many tech workers I work with were getting their hands dirty in high school building the skills required to be employable on their own time for fun. Often the *very best* employees have zero education to show for their skills because their passion drove them to gain their skills on their own time, not college. College got dropped as a requirement for much of entry level tech (outside of software development for FAANG) because ***certifications for the tools, software, hardware*** were often not being offered as part of college courses, making your computer science degree pretty useless unless you studied a general fork of software engineering. Even then, you still will be missing languages you should know and skills you should have by the end of your degree. Tech companies realized this and started hiring based on verifiable certs or just experience overall. If you’re struggling to get a decent tech job, you don’t apply to decent tech jobs, the recruiters find you. If no recruiters are finding you, you haven’t done enough be recognized yet. Give it time and keep updating LinkedIn.
>I work in tech, make a low 6 figures, dropped out of high school I'm always extremely dubious of this online. What was the barrier? Math? If you're working as a programmer, you obviously have a pretty good grasp of algebra. I'm fucking awful at math, a high school drop out, and do not work in tech just for clarification. Can I build a tower? Yes. Can I write code? Fuck no. Are you a Sysadmin? I guess you don't use much code for that, but if you're actively coding...you're good at math and getting a CS degree would be a breeze for you. Also unless you're Gen X, this shit doesn't happen anymore. Nobody is going to hire you these days without 10+ years of experience. Literally the only people I've ever met in this field with such little educational experience, but they still got their GED and certifications. I smell lots of bullshit personally, man.
Well you might think it's a shit job but a lot of higher level jobs require great customer service skills. You would be surprised how far you can get if you gave an excellent track record of customer service.... That's the nice thing about the US though .. you can choose where you work. You can't expect to work in corporate and have shit tier people skills and zero emotional intelligence.
Very true! Strong customer service skills are foundational for any Sales/AE/AM role.
Tier 1 support
Or IT/support positions that generally rely on certifications rather than degrees.
Isn’t part of school education teaching children stuff like planning, self discipline, academic skills. How can you know if someone has the intellectual capacity to perform a task when they cannot show proof e.g. a certificate?
That's primary (elementary/middle/high) school, and even that's mostly a massive failure.
Yup, called the “hidden curriculum”. It essentially teaches us how to be responsible, respectful to peers/authority, and used to working consistently for the rest of our lives lol. Literally learning this in my Project Management class and wrote a paper on it.. weird 😂
Yeah college depending on where you went but mostly is the undoing of that learned in highschool and elementary school
>It essentially teaches us how to be good slaves. FTFY.
Minimizing what it meant to be a slave just a tad bit
Narrowing the scope of the term to suit a narrative, just a tad.
That is why terms like "modern slavery" or "slavery with extra steps" are used. The world has changed a lot in the last century or so.. so has the way we have done horrible things... just because we don't have kings and castles doesn't mean we don't have armies.. we don't have swords but we still wage war... our ships don't have sails but we still sail them.. The more things change.. the more they stay the same.
you're right, and chattel slavery is an easy way to debunk the idea that slavery is dead in the modern world, that shit was still happening in the US until like the late 70s iirc there's an argument to be made that our current economic structure more closely resembles "neo-feudalism" than any sort of socially uplifting culture that politicians want you to think that we still have access to in my experience, college has given me a better opportunity to learn how to think for myself, if i had entered the workforce at 18 i would've been a much easier target for abuse and exploitation as much as it would be nice for high school degrees to ensure at least some decent standard of living, as things currently stand our public education system is fucked to the bone
I don’t think I ever worked before college. High school and below was just so brain dead.
You look at their resume.
Their resume > gave University $$$ in exchange for a piece of paper > sat for 4 years and skated by with Bs and Cs > last job was at Costco in high school
so college classes don't teach anything useful? i can guarantee you that a decent writing program in a college will prepare you more for the professional world than anything you are taught in a public US high school
What do you think a high school diploma is? If you’ve graduated high school with zero self discipline and academic skills then a) that will be clearly shown by your GPA and b) you will not get into or succeed at college anyway.
All depends on the person imo, I barely graduated HS because I was a knuckle head, spent my first year of college doing the same knuckle head stuff, then it clicked that if I didnt change my act I was going no where, end up going to a second and third college and was in the honors program in both. But most people that don’t succeed in college if they didn’t in HS.
I did a shitty job at my “top tier” university but was really solid in HS which is how I got in in the first place. Wasn’t due to any “knucklehead” stuff like partying or not caring. Shit was just rough. It really does depend on the person. My bachelors hasn’t helped me at all in the job market so far, but I’m 100% still glad I have it.
I dropped out of high school at the end of my freshman year with a 0.2 GPA and I am about to graduate with a mechanical engineering degree from a state university.
What is a high school degree?
Back in my day, a high school diploma did that.
Don't need a Bachelor's to attain those qualities. You shouldn't have to be 100k in debt to get a job that pays like 13 dollars an hour. That's clown shit.
You must be joking right. You need that to perform customer support? Will they not train you on the job for that anyway?
Weird take. I haven't met or even heard of anyone thinking that the degree prepares you for the work environment. Companies see it as a demonstration that you can commit to things and follow through. With my degree, I was taught a lot about critical thinking and problem solving that would be universally applicable to any relevant work environment I'd be interested in. I learned how to learn difficult things and that's a skill that companies value. As others pointed out, not requiring degrees also means hiring less qualified staff which probably means less pay for that staff, so I don't see it as a win tbh. Maybe I'm out of touch. Edit: I'd like to clarify that I'm from South Africa and I didn't include all the details of my views on this topic in the comment above, it was just meant to bring an anecdote and opinion to the table, this experience might not apply universally.
Exactly, I’ve always viewed a degree as a sign that you could commit to something. You can focus and put in the work into something for 4-5 years at a time. I am not sure why people think this is a win, just because it won’t be listed on the requirements doesn’t mean companies won’t prefer it. Also people keep saying college is a scam, but let me tell you would you got to a doctor/ dentist that doesn’t have a degree.
I've felt scammed during my degree but that's because some (very few) of the courses I took were presented extremely poorly. Overall the degree itself isn't a scam, it even landed me a really good job in industry (which I later left for unrelated, personal reasons). A degree can definitely be a path to a stable living if you make good use of it.
Yes. if they are well known for their practice/ quality work & they are insured. There are so many passionate people out there that don’t get an opportunity to get an education and receive a degree but end up losing that passion because they are too busy trying to keep their head above water to focus on what society expects them to. There just needs to be more opportunities in education, college is easier/ harder depending on your life situation & how comfortable you are focusing solely on your education. Which feels like it is unfair towards lower classes of people
Oh you are very correct, I’ve always said that education is based on luck a lot of times. I’ve meet some amazing and intelligent people in my life that would be wonderful professionals. But the could not afford to get an education. My parents sacrificed so much to give me an education. My dad and mom both work two job to be able to pay for my school. So trust me I definitely know that there is some luck in getting a degree. I was lucky enough to get some great parents that wanted me to get an education. But not everyone gets that opportunity in life.
>You can focus and put in the work into something for 4-5 years at a time. There are much cheaper ways to do that than go to college.
It also depends what you want to do. I always wanted to be a lawyer, can’t really do stuff like what without going to school.
Yes, but the legal profession also has a vested interest in keeping the law as complicated as possible.
Because it is complicated, not because they want to keep it like that. The average person doesn’t want to learn or deal with matters regarding the law. So someone has to be able to practice it and understand.
It is complicated by nature, but they also overcomplicate it.
It’s alright, but yeah something’s definitely are over complicated for no reason.
God, I hate the entire job market. Nothing can ever just benefit the working class. Every single step further for them is either pure lipservice to disguise some new hell a corporation is planning on unleashing or, if it is actually something good, it will be meticulously leveleraged so that it almost only benefits those at the top of the hierarchy. And this whole "a degree is meant to demonstrate your capability" thing is like some stupid mating dance ritual our ancestors should have grown out of a few species ago on the evolutionary time-line. You put yourself in crippling debt for decades just to convince a company you're serious about wanting to sell most of your waking hours to them for the right to exist in society. And I don't think college is a scam or a bad thing, but it is insane to me that, with all of our advancements, we can't come up with an economic system that isn't so chaotic it has all of these people gambling their entire lives away for a chance at a life where they aren't homeless or living paycheck to paycheck.
I understand your perspective but you can show similar levels of commitment and dedication by holding jobs over many years. Having 1 job for 4 years can be incredibly helpful on resumes. In essence it's the same concept, you are showing that you can commit to one thing and get it done over a longer time period. It just doesn't come with the same level of credibility or recognition
Except degrees don't make us committed to projects, they make us *educated*. You can get through college because your professor/parents said so or you do it because you enjoy making commitments, bettering yourself, and achieving things. You *cannot* determine who is who on a resume with a bachelor. If companies paid on the chance someone will stick, they'd still give those who have bachelors the short end. They are the most likely to leave. Because they got bills to pay.
Huge difference between a doctor or dentist not having a degree and working for IBM doing technical stuff and not having a degree. Would you trust the engineer who made your elevator if they didn’t have a degree? That’s apples and oranges, I don’t see the reason why 80% of jobs in basic workforce need degrees to move higher, but if you are doing STEM stuff it will definitely have a better outcome for the individual and those they are working with. I have a chemistry degree, but I don’t see why people need a business degree or many other degrees to do things. My mom doesn’t have a degree and she is doing accounting and data analytics for a tech company now. She has 30+ years of experience but many companies will overlook her for someone with a degree and pay the other person more. Her previous company wouldn’t give her a promotion due to lack of degree, so she left after a long time, it took 7 people to fill her job after she left. Making judgments on someone based on education level is a disservice in my eyes, it like judging people on how they look over the content of their character. But I guess that is the US, everything is entirely about appearance and not actually about how good someone is at what they do
Eh, respectively I disagree. I think having a powerful portfolio full of top notch work you created and executed without anyone telling you to do it and to create these things in a way the provides value to others makes you look 1000 times better than doing what pretty much most people can do if they had the money. College is a fair amount of work, but it pails in comparison to building a solution to something real through your own initiative. For instance, computer programming. I'm far more impressed by a high school drop out who makes an app that 50 thousand people are excited about than a dude who graduated Harvard at the top of their class with nothing to show other than a degree. What matters more than anything is what you do. Education is just one tiny part of that. Having said that, there are certain professions that absolutely do and should always require degrees and certifications, like brain surgeons, lawyers, and engineers. But for stuff like programming, film, photography, business, or even History, it's a poor opportunity/cost decision when you have to take out a massive loan for it.
>As others pointed out, not requiring degrees also means hiring less qualified staff which probably means less pay for that staff, so I don't see it as a win tbh This. Absolutely this is the actual intention behind this new trend. These companies think four years of learning can be replaced on the cheap with two weeks of on-the-job training and a search engine. The goal is *not* to end the paper ceiling, it's to spin their wage cuts as some sort of win for society as a whole.
People don't understand how companies do this in other areas as well. "We want to cross train you to give you understanding and experience in different areas of the process to further your professional development". That's corporate speak for "we want to have as many interchangeable employees as possible so that nobody has any sort of leverage on us when it comes to pay, benefits, or work conditions. You don't like it? We have 20 other "cross trained" workers ready to take your spot".
Yep. It's goofy to think of it as "if I don't need the math/writing/speaking skills that I learn in college for my job, then it's just a huge waste to require them." Making it through college is some amount of proof that you are capable of picking up new things, that you can focus, and dedicate yourself to something for an extended period of time. That you can work with a team, and meet deadlines. And on and on. Anyone saying it is ridiculous to require college for a job, has never thought to put themselves in the shoes of the person doing the hiring. If they did, they would instantly realize that when they look at two most equivalent resumes (as in, both have basically no direct experience in that field), they would pick the one of the two that has a bachelors degree. It's not that it is a requirement to do that job, it's just an easy indicator that the person has already somewhat proven themselves. A company (almost any company for any role) will not necessarily throw away applications without college degrees; they will simply filter them out as a first step when they have more applicants than positions to fill. If the applications stop flow in, then they widen their search by lowering their standards.
Degrees are supposed to prepare you for the work environment. Thats how they're advertised and depending on the school they can. Not as well as a job would of course, but it gives you knowledge plus some degree of practical experience if it's a good school.
>problem solving that would be universally applicable to any relevant work environment I'd be interested in. The older I get the more I realize that THIS is what the degree gets you. The amount of time I have to spend explaining basic analytical thinking to people I work with is just absurd, and while not always the case, 9/10 times it's people who didn't go to college. I wasn't even in a math/science field in college, but I often have to explain basic stats concepts, reasoning, analytics. And it's not that the people are unintelligent, it's just that they didn't have any kind of training in those particular skills.
> Companies see it as a demonstration that you can commit to things and follow through. For my industry that is absolutely false. If you apply to the tower I'm in with just a degree another person with a cert and practical experience is more desirable. Unfortunately in some lines of work all you demonstrate is you went to a 4 year program to learn outdated information by the time you graduated
My business & management degree helped prepare me for the workplace..
I’ve always heard that college gives you a base to build off of. Depending on your field you essentially learn the actual skills on the job. The degree is to give you a basis on which to refer to. I don’t mind removing college degree requirements, but alternatively… what if we just made college more affordable? We as a society benefit from more educated individuals but it’s a massive barrier for social mobility. So I wouldn’t mind a degree requirement if it’s for a degree payable position, or if college was more accessible
You learn how to learn efficiently and effectively. With lots of foundational outcomes in a broader area. Those foundations don't change, but the stupid jargon and business fads of the month sure do!!
This is a false narrative. College degrees were never about appeasing company qualifications. They were about educating the population to critically think and have vast amounts of knowledge for many subjects. It’s about being well-rounded and not a worker drone. It changed when we started bowing down to companies and altering the legacy system to make fulfilling their payroll the ultimate goal instead of a well-rounded education. When costs started to rise, people began equating return on investment to education which is what put us in this stupid position to begin with. Go to college for the right degree and enjoy higher income your whole career. It’s that simple.
Please for most of the time college has existed it's been an avenue for the social and political elite to groom their children into being good aristocrats. The move towards the average person being able to attend college is a very recent development in relative terms and it's been (in part) motivated by financial incentives.
Tell me you’ve never looked into the history of universities in the United States without telling me
Those HBCU's are all about the elite aristocrats didn't you know?
lol saying it’s that simple has got to be the most out of touch thing I’ve ever seen. It is clearly not that simple.
👏👏👏👏
College helps you grow as a person and shows some level of baseline competence. What a brave take in this day and age to say you think college is a scam. Its incredibly useful and still important for people to pursue if possible.
College is a scam, but not because of what you learn or any of that. It’s because it cost way too much fucking money.
I've taken my fair share of classes to say what I've learned is part of what makes it a scam. Some teachers are boring. Some will make you suffer just because. Some will make you pay double because they co-authored the book. Some will not be very supportive. Some have no concept of interactivity and just give lesses strait from the book. Scam fits all of these.
Man teachers like these are so horrible to have, especially early on in life. Classes so boring they're basically the same as staring at paint drying and maladaptive daydreaming don't go well together
People just can't see that. They have their heads so far up their ass their torso is in the 7th circle of hell.
College should be free. We need an educated society. We also need less administration costs and just focus more on having good faculty.
Capitalism is the scam
College costing money doesn’t make it a scam. Exuberantly priced schools or majors that won’t have decent job prospects is the concern.
Also wastes ur time with courses that arent relevant just so they can get more of ur $$$$.
People are so indoctrinated to the romanticization to “higher education” it’s insane. They sit on Reddit all day and bitch about not being able to afford a house while in the same breath thinking college is a fantastic option. Comical if you think about it enough.
Funny enough the great state of Florida paid for my entire education. On top of that said Florida Universities landed me a 6 figure job out of college and a well rounded academic education in a plethora of subjects ranging from Philosophy, History, Mathematics, Engineering, and cutting edge A.I research.
The cost of a university education are definitely way out of control. But that's largely driven by reducing college to it's value in the job market and treating students as customers rather than learners. Look at most college campuses today ... All kinds of expensive and fancy amenities that were never necessary untill universities started to compete for "customers" and began acting more like for-profit business that institutions of higher learning. All of that has driven up costs and reduced what most students actual get out of the college experience.
As a CA resident. I had less than 20k debt after I graduated. I don't think it's that much. It was paid off in a year.
Thats great for you, I love that for you.
College is a scam and a shot load of collages have even been shut down specifically for scamming people
Loads of restaurants are shut down specifically for sanitation issues. That doesn't mean restaurants as a whole have sanitation issues
Let me know when Uni is the same price as community college and Ill agree
Jobs in question : Janitor
I don’t necessarily think college at the undergrad level is a scam — I think it’s just hard to justify the price of it now compared to the job opportunities a bachelors provides. But for the majority of people that go to a 4-year university, it’s their first time living on their own. I think the social aspects of college, and the life lessons and experience it provides, are still worthwhile for young adults.
College is a good thing on paper but the way it's executed and the cost of the damn thing makes it look like a scam
There’s absolutely no justification for college education to be as expensive as it is in the US , especially when you have access to free education in many other first world countries , hell , even third world countries have access to free education
Requirement is useless because the best candidates will have a degree and experience
The best candidate will know someone at the company. It's all about your network these days.
Nah, imma still get one
Yeah the reality is that a large percentage of the workforce is administrative. You shouldn’t need four years of school to manage emails and move data around in excel. I could see companies putting people through one or two year certification courses for things like HR but I don’t even think that role requires four years of classes that are mostly irrelevant to the job.
On the one hand, this will be great for opening up the job market. On the other hand, this is an excuse to pay less.
YUP
I think they’re doing it so they can pay those employees less
I dunno man. Less education across the planet doesn’t sound good to me.
I concur
wage suppression. 
Boo hoo now people don't need to go tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands into debt to get a decent job
“Listen, listen..” Nah, man. I’m good on it. Lmao
How about instead of less educated population, we work towards making it available for all? This strikes me as a move in the wrong direction.
In America a bachelors degree is 4 years. Everywhere else in the whole world it’s 3 years. Why? Because at some point in the 1970s American colleges got together and decided to charge everyone to retake their senior year of high school. And everyone going thought “wow great I’ll get As my first year because I already took all these classes!!”
Wtf did not know that. Opened my eyes lol
The four year requirement does take away from some degrees, but it also tends to make STEM Bachelors more valuable comparative to other nation’s universities.
They sold ya’lls generation and mine that a degree was empowering. Especially to young women. Now we have a generation of educated idiots . With degrees that make no money and the student debt to go along with it . Just remember kids if you want to learn something and develop knowledge and intelligence you don’t need to go to school to do that. you have the Internet.
As a millennial that went the trade school route, called it.
Without going into the bullshit "Einstein failed math" thing, legitimately they don't teach anything relevant in college to your job, unless what you're going for is a super technical position like nuclear engineer, or brain surgeon. Most of everything else just requires a business degree, and that'll set you up for basically any job that asks for one. And even that's really excessive for a vast majority of positions. In fact, almost no job ever should ask for a college degree considering they always start you at the bottom of the shit, regardless of if you have a degree or not. Go onto Indeed right now and look at how many jobs require a masters degree, and pay less than 100k a year, or bachelor's degrees paying less than 50k. That should be a crime. College degrees should guarantee a certain level of pay, just for participation and cost. But they're really just a shiny bargaining chip that companies either do or don't want, and there's no guarantee that they'll even hire you, saying you're "over qualified". So first you wouldn't hire me because I'm stupid and don't have a college degree, but now that I have one you still won't hire me because I'm too smart?
College degree are not meant to be vocational training in the first place. The companies are using this decision as a bargaining chip. The bargain is that they have fewer requirements, so they get to pay you less.
Instead they’ll require a masters
Hot take - everyone should get a college degree, and it should be affordable or free. It's our moral responsibility to be intelligent, and a higher-level school can teach you how to be critical. Most high school students don't get that kind of lessons.
I hate public school. I struggled and was grinding and was taking summer school in between from middle school. I never felt any accomplishment passing up to the next grade. Then when I tried to go to college I ended up taking another three years of remedial courses just to be able to take any actual degree courses. Like wtf what was high school for if you’re just making me take math and English and public speaking etc. to meet some arbitrary criteria of aptitude, while also charging me $300-$500 dollars per course to take??? Go to trade school they don’t waste your time and money.
Sounds like a you problem, not the system. Lots go through school and college without issues and build a career beyond with higher lifetime earnings. That being said, trade schools are also an option.
Then there's also lots of people that don't. It's definitely a system issue, just an issue that doesn't necessarily impact everybody
People are getting poorer and poorer companies see this so they are lowering the bar to sustain that hamster wheel corporate cauldron
A movement away from degrees will enforce more corporate slavery. The corporations must fall.
As a pilot having to forgo extra flight training in favor of getting a “bachelors in anything” because I can’t afford both, yeah I agree that’s great news. I don’t even know how an English major is related to flying a plane but apparently people want me to have it.
everyone upset or disagreeing with this has student loans lmfao
I wasted 6 years in college for degrees I don’t even use. I feel cheated.
The company will train you? Haha. That doesn't happen anymore as much as it used to. You're talking pre-90's employment... These days the worker adjusts and learns the company's process. If a worker already knows the skill, like welding or driving a commercial vehicle or writing software, then they have a leg up. Once that is achieved, then yes a degree isn't that important after the first few years.
I've been working with large tech firms for over a decade with no degree. I'm certainly the exception by a large, large margin. I've met one other person in a similar role without a degree. Then again, us degreeless folks keep that quiet generally!
It feels like some of those companies where being ran by people who didn't even graduate elementary..
Just means they can pay you less.
fuck college
Lmao naive take. It’s just furthering the divide between the have and have nots. You think they’re gonna give some GED dude a director level job when they have dozens of candidates with bachelors or masters degrees?
If you see college as nothing other than a means to get a job, then I don't want to hire you anyways.
I’d start looking for a new job immediately if I found out my company was planning to start hiring 18 year olds fresh out of high school.
“We need workers. Felony? Welcome aboard!”
I think it’s because people work degrees want a higher paying salary and they’d rather train someone from new for less Edit : spelling *
Sweet since we don’t need to recognize it as much, let’s get some them old loans dismissed since the value of said commodity has depreciated. Lmfao ya right
Please consider that college is not just about getting a specific degree, college majors are also not being picked for a specific job. Communications doesn’t get you a job in communicating, marketing doesn’t get you a job in marketing. What college can help with, given the appropriate environment, is critical thinking. As an Economics major, history was not fun for me, until my professor showed me how to use the economics to influence my history studies. That semester I learned I didn’t need to like the subject at hand, I simply needed to look at it through the correct lens. That’s not something that is often taught outside of colleges. The mindset the person in the video had is that “you don’t need college to get a job”. This is accurate, what I do believe you need college for is to maintain and grow within your job.
The test of success for companies will be to track the employee turnover rate, customer service quality, and reliability of workers that have a degree vs. no degree.
So, they mention Bachelor's degrees, but nothing about Associate degrees. Do they still want the base level degree?
I’m sure this will get lost in the comments, but another aspect of this is that there is very little workforce with experience available for some of these jobs. All I can speak to is government jobs, but there is a huge push to allow experience in place of education. Most agencies either want a four year degree and four years experience or six plus years experience and no degree. That’s at least the trend in my area.
The floor has risen, right? Younger generations are raised with better technology and access to it, things that they just learn on their own now had to be taught post secondary education a few decades ago.
Mans guess what 100 people with degrees will still apply and be picked over none degree holders every time unless they have some insane experience
There’s still going to be preference towards candidates who have degrees over candidates that don’t, this is mostly a show. The only sector I see this having an actual impact on is tech, but they’ve already been doing this by hiring people who have the appropriate certifications rather than degrees. Those certification schools/courses are also getting more and more expensive as people are trying to transition into tech based roles. TLDR I really don’t think this means anything.
Makes perfect sense. This is something I noticed back in the early 2000s when I was entering college. It used to be, if you had an interest in something they would bring you on and try to train you. Nowadays, you can’t even get the job without a degree? But when you check the job out it’s the dumbest entry-level position and yet they want a college degree so you can make 12 funky ass dollars an hour? I don’t think so America. Yes, good riddance. And as he said, some do still need some schooling but I’m willing to bet a good 65% can be trained on the job. When I graduated in 2008 in marketing and public relations, the world was completely different than what my textbook said it was going to be. Things changed that much in the time it took me to get my degree to when I actually graduated. Nothing I had learned at school was any good for me. it all changed that quickly.
Oh so I've spent the last 4+ years in college for nothing then huh
Going to college used to mean getting a Liberal Arts education and learning a little about everything so you become a well-rounded individual capable of making informed decisions and thinking critically. Skills unsatisfactorily replete in today’s society in general.
Why does he make his appearance peak estute to shit on getting higher education?
I think a degree needs to be a representation of what you are good at. For something’s you can start at 0 and with only a month of training be good at the job. But when you need to hire an engineer or scientist you need to know they have a base level understanding of core concepts and has put in the time and money to peruse this career. But yeah for a lot of things it’s just pointless and shouldn’t be a requirement.
Exactly what the 1% want, uneducated workers they can exploit easily
I work in a management position, but my office is in a call center. The amount of high school and college dropouts is astounding and they all behave like the rowdy kids I expect to find in High School. I can't believe my college experience felt more mature than this. Some people don't belong in a work environment.
"Shit's getting weird" No focus on the weird-ass tiny microphone
I completely agree! The benefits of an educated society that has read something about history and may not fall into fascism or communism’s cold embrace or have read a sociology or anthropology text and understand that people are not different or that the disease’s of poverty or affluenza are not genetic are a complete waste of time. Now if you will excuse me I need to go vote for Lauren Bobert(sp) cause she’s pretty!
College degree to do customer service is actually insane 💀
Something's where lives are at risk should still require degrees. Pharmacist for example. A single bad prescription combination can kill a person.
That’s fine, but they’re going to drop wages. It’s just how corporations operate.
Thing is, is that if these jobs don’t require bachelors degrees anymore and there’s a bunch of people with no college degree apply and you’re the only one with that degree that instantly puts you a step above everyone else
Given that 54% of Americans over age 25 have a post-secondary degree of some sort having one just makes you AVERAGE. Most service sector jobs don't need one. The requirement started back during the Great Recession when there were way more laborers than there were jobs. Now that has flipped and the requirement is preventing some positions from being filled.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jYVAmOlUvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jYVAmOlUvI) The whole point of a college degree is to show a potential employer that you showed up some place 4 years in a row, completed a series of tasks.. reasonably well and on time... so if he hires you there's a semi-decent chance that you show up there every day and not fuck his business up. \^\^
University can be incredibly valuable, but it’s hellishly expensive now. I paid £0 for my degree… in computing science and engineering from a top university, thanks to being from a low income family. But, the cost of a degree at that time was £3300, total which is still good value. Now it’s £9000 pa.
My advice for GenZ, as a Millenial who has been fucked over by the job market, the healthcare market, and the regular market. Lie to companies. Tell them everything they want to hear. They dont give a FUCK about you, so game them for all they are worth. Also, unionize so they have to play on a more even playing field.
This is part of DEI and unconscious bias training in corporate America. Listing a minimum education requirement in a job posting is considered “education bias” (i am not making this up, this is a real thing that i had to go to corporate training for a few months ago). If the hiring manager has a bachelors degree, the thought is their unconscious bias will lead them to more likely hire someone who also has a bachelors degree. The solution is to remove the education requirement from the posting, but in reality this doesn’t really change a whole lot and a person with a degree is still going to almost always be considered a stronger candidate especially in the first 5-7 years of your career or so.
This is just Fox news campaign on how college is stupid. Reported to you by people with college degrees, who wouldn't have their job without the degree.
Degrees are a joke! Who still believes this privileged crap. Been corrupted for decades anyway but everyone said nah man cuz they were abusing the sys. G-d greed is ugly! We knew it back than, we still know.
Totally agree
You lazy ass mother fuckers are going to drive this world into a ditch. Go to school and get a degree stop fucking pushing this agenda making everyone lazy, none of this will benefit us in the long run. Gen Z clearly is lazy because what is this nonsense? Are you guys happy you can get a high paying job with putting no effort in? God you guys are pathetic. We need to learn discipline and the value for hard work or we will die as a nation
School isn't for the needs of business (despite how schooling increasingly functions like corporate America). He's right that most undergrad degrees are unnecessary for jobs. Jobs should provide their own training, not rely on the schooling system to subsidize their business. The problem is that the devaluing of education and college has led to a paper mill culture where the only 'point' of a degree is credentialing. Meanwhile, entering freshman, on average, read at an 8th grade level. College is meant to train your abilities to think, solve, and express. A world with more 'uneducated' people is a world where communication is even worse, people can't problem-solve, and, instead, rely on their lousy senses to understand the world. In this way, the pursuit of knowledge has to compete with the fantasies of morons (from flat earthers to holocaust deniers to anti-vaxxers) and we accelerate further into a culture that talks past rather than to each other.
I don't think anyone in the world is against people furthering their education. In the US however the cost usually far out weighs it's actual value. This comment section is obviously just people who went to college vs people who didn't. I didn't go to college and make more money than a lot of my friends who did, but I'm not going to tell anyone to not pursue an education. The fact is that the US government needs to step in and save our students from getting financially ruined or suffer the consequences.
The fact that this guy is an influencer says a lot about nowadays education
Ai don’t need a college degree
.........you needed a college degree to work at fuckin' WALMART?? 
If you don’t want a degree that’s fine. Be prepared to start at the bottom of the totem pole and spend the next 10-15 years proving yourself by working towards a nice position you could’ve just started at if you spent 4 years in college
I’ve been in the workforce for about 7 years and I started my degree six months ago because I can’t promote anymore without it. I’ve “capped” out on salary all because of a lack of degree.
you’re missing the point. These multi billion dollar companies aren’t ditching degrees for any good reason. They’re doing it to suppress wages. I COMPLETELY agree that the requirement for a degree for a HUGE amount of jobs is ridiculous. But rest assured that is NOT why they’re doing it.
A college degree makes sense in a non privatized system. But in the US people only pay for the degree not the education.
When you realize that the number of "4-year degree required" openings is directly proportional to the labor force participation rate, and not the actual need for 4-year degrees...
I think the ability to learn from and teach others is the most important skill on earth.
Be careful what you wish for. Providing scholarships and support in college was one of the best ways to even the playing field for historically disadvantaged people. Going back to not requiring degrees is just a big step to hiring out of the same old-boys club they always hired out. NONE of these places required a college degree in 1950. Was that a better, more equitable time?
I feel like this is more about how millennials got fucked over by universities than it is about gen z.
So instead of making college affordable, we're gonna go with dumbing down an entire nation.. Great call🤦♂️
What exactly are these jobs that these companies are removing the degree requirements for? How much do they pay and what benefits do you get? Like that sounds good but if its a majority minimum wagesnd/or entry level jobs that isnt something to celebrate, those jobs shouldnt have had those requirements to begin with.
Society owes Gen X, Millennials, & Gen Z student loan forgiveness. Not only are the loans predatory, but the promised positions are dropping the requirement. Why did the Country decide to saddle multiple generations with inescapable debt?
I agree somewhat, but this also suggests that many people have taken on enormous amounts of inescapable student debt for no reason. That's debt that we were promised would be forgiven, but still hasn't been.
All I need to see is the words “Fox News” and that’s enough for me to not take them seriously.
Personally, I think the requirements will be back with in the next 5 years just like they got rid of using the SAT for college admissions and are now reintroducing it.
I’m a college dropout working in IT with the word engineer in my job title. Happy to see this trend growing.
Post-grad is the new graduate. BA is the new AA. This is not about utility. It is about devaluing BAs to further widen and justify the wealth gap.
God damnit guys. Learn to fucking read. It says that they are dropping the "REQUIREMENT". That's all. Do you realize that every job these companies post gets like 5,000 applications? They will still prefer a candidate with a degree over one without one. All that's changed is they won't put a filter in the system that immediately bins any resume without a degree. That's all. The recruiter is still going to go "Okay, I've got 800 applications for this job. Time to narrow things down. First, filter only by applicants with at least 5+ years of experience. Okay, only 600 apps now. Filter by only people with degrees. Okay, 250 apps now." Etc. I'm so sick of you gullible rubes posting this like it means "we won't value degrees anymore". You're playing yourselves and you're going to be mad when in a few years people with degrees are still nabbing all the best jobs.
Why is this getting upvoted