What is the value of a college degree?

This weekend while watching football, a commercial came on several times from University of Maryland Global Campus, an online university. It featured a woman who had to go back to get her degree after working for 20 years in HR. She had reached her “ceiling” and couldn’t advance any higher in career without her bachelor’s degree.

What is there about her 20 years of experience that says she is not qualified for growth?

Was her boss being honest with her about her future?

Was it just a way to tell her that she wasn’t ready for the promotion and the default answer was that she didn’t have her degree?

College graduation is a club that we join that comes with a membership certificate that gives us entry. We protect that membership exclusivity by using it to exclude others who didn’t do the work to get into the club.

What is it about these 4-5 years attending classes, most of which have zero relevance to the skills we need in our job, that means we are special?

What is the value gained other than the membership?

Many people will say that they value someone who set a goal, worked hard and achieved it?

There are other ways to demonstrate hard work and tenacity than college.

Can someone who has dedicated their lives to being an academic provide real world experience on how to manage people? Interact with customers?

There are more practical ways for people to gain experience and expertise in the skills necessary to succeed.

Yet, we still put requirements for “club membership” on jobs that do not really require a college degree.

We have all been guilty of this. How many times have we reviewed a Job Description with “required qualifications” and stated that a 4-year degree was mandatory? We think that the person is an achiever, a hard worker and someone who has dedicated their time to achieving a goal. They are better and more prepared that someone who quickly entered the workforce.

Our country and especially our young people are in crisis with massive debt from a college degree that has diminished value and no longer fully delivers on the promise that a graduate will find gainful employment that will justify their investment.

We as business leaders are part of the root cause of this paradigm.

Why does an experienced Accounts Payable person need a degree to become AP manager?

The warehouse supervisor who has run the operation for years is held back from promotion because they didn’t go to college.

The role of a Vice President is many times blocked to only MBA’s or those with other advanced degrees.

There are jobs like accounting, finance, engineering and others that are essentially trades that take some formal education to learn the skills needed to do the job.

The college degree of today is not what it once was.

20 years ago, classes were held only in-person and both attendance and performance were required.

My son attended Texas Tech during COVID while all classes went remote. I actually listened in on a few of his classes and found the quality of the education was nowhere close to where it needed to be. Following COVID, once the school fully opened again still half of his classes were online. His degree is worth exactly what my degree is worth in terms of resume fodder. Expediency in teaching has lowered the quality of the education with nothing but continued rising tuition costs in return.

When I graduated with my Accounting degree it was a 4-year program. I was then able to take the CPA or CMA exam. Now the Accounting curriculum is a Masters degree taking 5 years. This has not produced better Accountants but has been a 25% increase in revenue for universities. This same thing has happened to many degrees in order to keep the students on the tuition revenue stream for another year.

My daughter completed four years at University of Texas with a degree in Biology and graduated near the top of her class. She then had to earn a spot in the very competitive Physical Therapy program of another university for 3 additional years to earn her Doctorate in Physical Therapy. This is the minimal requirement to become a Physical Therapist. Seven years of school to enter a job market that will keep her mostly an hourly employee. Physical Therapy is not an intellectual endeavor, but a trade learned on how to work with patients. They do not prescribe medications; they cannot really even stand alone as an enterprise except under the guidance or oversight of a doctor to refer patients.

My wife graduated long ago with an Associates degree in Nursing. A similar career that is a trade where skill transfer predominates the curriculum but is now a 4-year degree. After more than 30 years she still is closed out on many jobs because her degree was not a Bachelor’s.

When I attended college for my Accounting degree it was after several years as a restaurant manager. To this day I contend that I learned all of my management skills by running a 24/7 restaurant. I managed 80 people, more than a million dollars in revenue and dealt with customers on a daily basis. I was taught customer service by grabbing two coffee pots after a big rush and hitting every single table in the restaurant and asking, “how was everything tonight.” You don’t get that experience in a classroom. I use the skills I learned there everyday. My Accounting degree again was mostly a transfer of skills, nothing more than a trade.

Currently, I’m subscribed to the Great Courses program. It is a wonderful series of videos on hundreds of topics presented by college professors. Simultaneously I’m watching a 30-episode course on the history of Great Britain and also a 30-episode show on Advanced Business Principles that is easily a Masters level course. I’m able to access such well done, detailed and extremely informative information for $7.99 per month.

We are now in the age of online access to a world of learning. YouTube videos are out there on every topic from home improvement to Advanced Biology. Many colleges are taping their professor’s lecture’s and then reusing them for online courses. With technology advancing as it is, online learning leading to alternative certifications must be right around the corner.

But will we, as business leaders accept this?

Will we still value the output of large, heavily endowed universities where academics teach theory over former, experienced business leaders teaching and mentoring our future leaders?

Getting back to the woman with 20 years of experience in HR who needed to go back to college. She had to retake Psychology, Algebra, Sociology and other core courses that she probably had in high school. She had to fill up time to complete the necessary credit hours to earn the Bachelors degree. She had to invest tens of thousands of dollars, invest time away from her family to clear an artificial hurdle that was placed in front of her by the business world.

What is even more frustrating is that this woman worked in Human Resources. In most organizations they are tasked with a training responsibility to bring curriculum to the employees for onboarding, safety training and job specific skills. A quick review of YouTube for Advanced Human Resources showed a series of 37 episodes on the topic by one organization and another covering the topic over 20 videos.

Couldn’t a mix of these videos, with weekly mentoring sessions from an HR mentor and some other development work suffice to prepare our experienced HR person for leadership?

There are companies dedicated to Industrial training for factory employees. I’ve used these programs and they are excellent. There are Coursera and Udemy where professors, teachers and retired experts put together excellent courses for people to advance their skills.

How did we get here? Why are we pushing people to get degrees when there are viable opportunities? Why are people who choose the alternative path stigmatized and looked down upon in the business world?

Our society is part of this problem.

Our government is not adept at solving problems. They throw money at problems and never really get to root cause because they really aren’t looking to solve it, but campaign on it. They are not solving anything. They are trying to eliminate student debt without addressing any of the myriad issues of a college education except using the political issue to garner votes from those same young voters.

1. Why is tuition rising so much faster than all other costs in our economy?

2. Why are university endowments not a part of the operating budget for the university?

3. Why are program’s becoming longer in order to get the same degree that was fine with 4 years in the past?

We have an entire generation of people who are so saddled with debt that home ownership and the prospect that they will succeed greater than their parents is now an unrealistic goal.

Mike Rowe, from Dirty Jobs is a strong advocate for encouragement of trades as a career path. He offers millions of dollars in scholarships for trade schools as alternatives. I fully support his efforts, especially with my background in Manufacturing where we are having trouble filling our workforce.

Back to the central question.

Why do we require College, 4-year degrees for getting a job and for future advancement?

Can a person with 10 years' experience gain some informal education, some mentoring and ongoing counsel to learn how to lead others and take the manager, director or Vice President role?

I think they can.

Value your long-term employees.

Give them unlimited opportunities for growth in your organization.

Be creative on how to develop them into advancing roles.

Perform succession planning to identify their gaps, help fill them and keep them moving forward.

If we continue to hold people back who don’t have a degree or put unnecessary educational requirements on a Job Description to filter out people, we are the problem.

Don’t complain about student debt unless you can open your mind to hiring and advancing those excellent candidates who do not have a degree.

Let me be the first to say it…

I VALUE EXPERIENCE OVER A COLLEGE DEGREE EVERY TIME!!

We all need to:

DO BUSINESS BETTER