A new survey in the U.S. job market has revealed that more companies are shifting away from the tradition of requiring applicants to have bachelor’s degrees to be considered for certain positions.
While some companies like Walmart, IBM, Accenture, Bank of America, and Google have already declared that they will minimize the number of jobs requiring a college degree, Daily Wire reported that other big companies are now looking to follow suit by next year.
Intelligent had also reported that living costs have skyrocketed in recent years, and paying college tuition has caused many people to steer away from the idea of getting themselves a bachelor’s degree.
The publication recently conducted a survey that included 800 U.S. employers. The results revealed that almost half (45%) of those companies planned to eliminate the requirement of having a bachelor’s degree by next year.
The survey further stated that 70% of companies have already eliminated the requirement from their application process to make their workforce more diverse. Meanwhile, 55% of companies said they stopped adding the degree as a requirement in 2023, with 4 in 5 employers valuing experience over education.
The elimination of bachelor’s degree requirements varied across industries. Currently, of the 95% of employers who have bachelor’s degree requirements, 24% require these degrees for three-quarters of their jobs, while 27% say they require a bachelor’s degree for about half of the positions in their company. Nineteen percent say only about one-fourth of their jobs require a bachelor’s degree.
- Information services: 72%
- Software: 62%
- Finance & insurance: 61%
- Construction: 55%
- Healthcare & social assistance: 42%
- Education: 35
In May, Virginia joined the ranks of 12 other states that had previously removed the need for a bachelor’s degree to gain access to government jobs.
According to Best Colleges, the other states that have adapted to the change include Maryland, North Carolina, Utah, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Alaska, and more.
