NC seeks to fill jobs by removing degree requirements. It’s a start. | Opinion

Following in the footsteps of states like Maryland and Pennsylvania, North Carolina is now making it easier to get a government job without a college degree.

Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order Monday aimed at reducing the sky-high number of state government job vacancies. The order clarifies that relevant work experience can be substituted for education for most state jobs — meaning that many positions won’t necessarily require a college degree.

At the same time, a related bill is making its way through the state legislature with bipartisan support. Senate Bill 239, titled “Reduce Barriers to State Employment,” would require the State Human Resources Commission to reduce the number of state jobs that require a four-year college degree.

In some NC departments, vacancies have reached 10-year highs. It’s strained the state’s ability to provide essential services, affecting DMV wait times, school bus routes and law enforcement.

As the labor market tightens, an increasing number of employers in the public and private sectors have begun to drop degree requirements. A nationwide survey conducted in January found that 34% of companies eliminated college degree requirements in the past year to increase the number of applicants.

Not only can this strategy help curb worker shortages, it can also help increase diversity in the workplace.

Why? Degree requirements tend to be an arbitrary barrier to employment. Educational attainment is not always the most accurate indicator of ability or talent, especially for middle-skill jobs that once did not require a degree. Degree requirements also ignore the fact that there are many ways to obtain skills and relevant experience, and they don’t necessarily involve a bachelor’s degree, which is often prohibitively expensive and remains out of reach for many.

In fact, the majority of Americans do not have a college degree, and Black and Hispanic Americans are far less likely to have graduated from college than their white peers. Requiring a degree as a condition of employment exacerbates the opportunity gap, boxing already marginalized populations into low- and middle-wage occupations.

Of course, that doesn’t mean education isn’t valuable. But community college, trade school or certificate programs can be worth just as much as a four-year degree in many fields, and experience is a worthy substitute for education in certain skilled professions. Many tech companies, for example, hire talent and invest in them through internship or apprenticeship programs until they learn the skills they need to succeed in the role.

There is a downside, however. If the trend of dropping degree requirements continues, it may ultimately compound the looming enrollment cliff at North Carolina’s public universities. Demographic shifts brought on by a drop in the birth rate will result in fewer high school graduates, exacerbating a nationwide dip in college enrollment that crept in during the pandemic.

Skepticism about the value of a college degree will make that cliff steeper. As the number of good jobs available to those without degrees increases, the perceived value of higher education will inevitably fall. The idea that a college education is the only way to live a happy, comfortable life is losing its luster, even as young people with college degrees continue to enjoy higher earnings than their peers. Experts say that shift could be “cataclysmic” for the state of higher education.

And while eliminating degree requirements may help fill some state vacancies, it’s not going to be a magic fix. North Carolina isn’t just struggling to hire workers — it’s also struggling to retain them. Much of that has to do with wage stagnation and the decline of benefits such as pensions that have historically drawn people to public sector jobs in the first place.

Cooper’s proposed budget, which he released Wednesday, contains 8% raises for state employees as well as retention bonuses. GOP leaders called his proposal “unserious” and “reckless.” But until the state truly invests in its workers with salary bumps and bonuses, worker shortages will persist, no matter how much North Carolina changes its hiring standards.