With worker shortages across the country driving up wages for skilled trades, some experts think the value of obtaining a bachelor’s degree is falling.
Julie Bauke, a chief career strategist with the Bauke Group, spoke with KCBS News Radio’s Jennifer Hodges about the recent devaluation of four-year degrees and what it means for the workforce.
Bauke shared that it “is becoming more true” than ever before that the value of skills outweighs the value of a degree when searching for work.
“We have a worker shortage all over the place, in almost every profession,” Bauke said. “So it makes sense that, because of that, companies would start to relax their degree requirements.”
Bauke added that in a different type of economy, degrees are used by employers as a way to “thin the herd” during the hiring process.
However, in the current economy, Bauke says the herd doesn’t need to be thinned. Instead, she says it needs to be “fattened up” as workers are hard to come by. One of the things helping to fatten the herd is the ability to hire remote workers from anywhere.
“Work from anywhere and technology allows companies to hire people from areas in which they didn’t have access to those people in the past,” Bauke said.
When looking at the statistics, Bauke says that 60% of Americans already don’t have a bachelor’s degree, and with the price for school continuing to rise and student debt going nowhere, there is no pressure to obtain one.
“Employers are going ‘Huh! We are better off maybe bringing people in, doing an aptitude test, or some sort of test and then training them ourselves,’” Bauke said.
Now, Bauke isn’t completely ruling out secondary education, as she says you need to learn some skill, but before you do, you need to have an idea of what you want to do.
“There is still a lot to be said for some sort of training beyond high school. Whether it’s a trade school, a two-year associates program,” Bauke said, adding that even “Google has their program now.”
“The options in terms of getting an education that prepares you for a good paying job are way broader than before.”
Along with the new ways to learn, there are also new forms of employment, and Bauke says this is also adding to the ongoing talent shortage.
“Kids don’t see the path that we saw as being the only way,” Bauke said.
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