Employable skills without jumping through hoops

October 3, 2022

Over the prior decade when labor supply tightened, and throughout the greater labor squeeze of the pandemic, the percentage of jobs requiring a college degree have declined. Some, including commentators and reporters for Forbes and Inside Higher Ed, are calling this new hiring trend “skills-based hiring,” in which employers hire candidates who demonstrate skill rather than hold a degree.

A widespread hope is that skills-based hiring might remove obstacles to opportunity and diversify the workforce. Elyse Rosenblum, managing director of Grads for Life, told The New York Times in April, “For diversity goals, the biggest lever you can pull is eliminating the four-year degree filter.”

While skills-based hiring is increasing, it is uncertain whether the trend will end soon or endure. In the meantime, college graduates still enjoy higher wages. In 2021, according to the Economic Policy Institute, people with Bachelor’s degrees made $38.26 per hour on average, compared to the average of $23.08 per hour made by people with only some college. Yet more than 60% of the United States population lacks a bachelor’s degree.

A challenge facing higher ed, then, is to provide students with job-relevant skills while offering pathways to degrees. Here are some recent efforts to coordinate workplace training with college degree programs. Some of these approaches are work-based and have been called “earn-and-learn,” while others offer alternative stackable credentials that provide “off-ramps” from a degree. These approaches certify skills incrementally and can lead to a college degree, often at less cost for learners. 

Online microcredentials

Microcredentials have seen an explosion in recent years in both popularity and acceptance. With many employers dropping their requirement of a four-year degree for entry level positions, microcredentials make sense as a way to show potential employers you are already well versed in the basics. For example, edX offers a professional certificate in Financial Accounting, a six course program that costs learners just over $1,000 that could vault applicants to the top at companies like Ernst & Young, who have recently announced they will not require a four-year degree for certain positions.  

Bootcamps

Some people, MIT’s Sanjay Sarma among them, have suggested that bootcamps could count toward college degrees. Professor Sanjay speaking at a recent conference, “Bridging the Education / Workforce Gap”, said “What I’m thinking about is atomizing education into much smaller chunks, which includes the online credential, which includes a bootcamp where you’re working with teams doing teamwork, doing a hackathon.”

There are several Bootcamps available for learners in a wide range of subjects, costs, and timeframes. You can find out more by browsing this list. 

Grant college credits and industry-recognized credentials in “high school”

A nonprofit focused on educational reform, Jobs for the Future, or JFF, proposes “blurring” what they call the “arbitrary dividing line” between high school and college. Instead, they are calling for an educational structure in which students attend a new kind of public school—not high school, not college—that extends from grades 11 to 14. JFF calls their proposal “the big blur,” as in blurring divisions among high school, college, and work.

Throughout the new 11-to-14-grade school, the JFF proposes, students should be able to take courses that count as dual credit, as credit for both high school and college diplomas. In this proposal too, credits would be earned through pedagogically structured work experiences with partnered business, thus blurring school and work. Ultimately, students could learn skills relevant to industry demands and receive certificates that validate the student’s competency and learning for both colleges and future employers.

Credentials through apprenticeships

Unlike internships, in which a student works for a few months, leaves, and adds a line to their resume, apprenticeships can result in certification of specific knowledge and skills and, possibly, college course credit that can count toward a degree. Many such apprenticeships are already coordinated in the U.S. by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Registered Apprenticeship Program or by individual states.

A major challenge is to coordinate employers and post-secondary institutions to develop standard credentials that both employers and schools recognize—credentials that demonstrate skills, competencies, and knowledge valued by employers and schools.

One model that has shown promise is that of Apprenti. Their model works with employers creating self-ownership in the development of a locally sourced skilled and motivated workforce. And while this process puts more ownership on the industry leaders, it can be a valuable resource for job-seekers with current skills who need to broaden those skills while earning a living wage. 

Work and life experience credits

Many colleges and universities give course credit for work and life experiences, like military service and workplace training, also known as credit for prior learning. Colleges and universities tend to award these credits when students pass exams that demonstrate knowledge or competency, or when students submit portfolios—curated collections that document and explain experiential learning.

To facilitate credit for prior learning, the American Council on Education, an association of over 1,700 colleges and universities, maintains a public guide, where degree seekers can learn about potentially credit-bearing exams and work-based training programs. Because not every university accepts such exams and programs, the ACE advises students to consult their admissions offices.

Some college programs also encourage students to submit portfolios to earn course credit for prior experience. An online program within Purdue university, Purdue Global, reports that on average their students earn 35 course credits, equivalent to more than $11,000 in tuition at Purdue Global, when they submit a portfolio. To earn these credits, students must submit portfolios that explain and evidence how work or volunteer experiences have met learning outcomes of specific courses. 

To summarize, there are opportunities for students and current professionals to change careers, upskill, or even launch a new career with much greater ease than previous learners experienced. These are just a few examples of steps learners and workers can take to transition in the workforce without spending a fortune and hopefully leveraging some of the experiences and skills they already have. 

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