Everyone should be able to find a good-paying, rewarding job – regardless of whether or not you have a 4-year degree.
We have world-class universities in Ohio, that everyone should have the opportunity to go to if they want. But that isn’t the right path for everyone. Nearly 70 percent of Ohioans do not have a bachelor’s degree. And for many of those Ohioans, when they apply for a job, it often feels like the deck is stacked against them.
They’re not wrong.
Even with skills and experience from working, going to community college, or serving in the military, jobseekers can run into a brick wall in the form of a couple little boxes on job application forms: Check here to specify your educational attainment, and if you can’t check the “bachelor’s degree” box, watch as managers – or computer algorithms – continually push your resume to the bottom of the pile.
Call it elitism, call it stupidity – whatever the reason, it’s just plain wrong. We shouldn’t turn workers away from jobs based solely on their lack of degree, without evaluating people’s actual skills.
Of course there are some jobs that will always require higher education – I doubt any of us would allow someone to operate on us if they hadn’t gone to medical school. But in too many cases, employers put a blanket requirement for a bachelor’s degree on all jobs, regardless of the kind of work involved and the specific skills needed to do it. Too often, a degree becomes nothing more than a credential – a ticket to show you’re a member of the club, and a way for employers to weed out anyone else.
We need to change that, and we can start with jobs funded by taxpayers. The federal government should not make a bachelor’s degree the default requirement for all jobs.
I’ve introduced legislation to change that. Our bill would make it easier for Americans without 4-year degrees to get federal jobs, and do away with arbitrary degree requirements.
A job candidate’s specific skills and training and experience should speak for themselves, and should be evaluated on their own merits. If an agency believes there’s a position that demands a specific degree, they can make the case for setting that requirement – but it shouldn’t be the default assumption. There are many ways to get useful experience, and sometimes the most useful training can come from an hourly job or military service or night classes at a community college.
And at a time when many Americans don’t feel like their government works for them, we should make it a priority for the people who work there to reflect the country – not just the minority of Americans who have a four-year degree.
We also need to recognize that some people learn best in a classroom, while others learn best by doing – and for a lot of folks, it’s somewhere in the middle. People may want to take a few classes at one of Ohio’s outstanding community colleges, while also working in the field they’re interested in and learning on the job.
It’s why we’re also working to step up career and technical education and training. Ohioans should be able to see, starting at young ages, that there isn’t one path that’s right for everyone. It’s why for more than a decade, our office has partnered with businesses and educators around Ohio to put on Summer Manufacturing Camps for middle-schoolers. And it’s why we’re working to expand technical education in high schools, and to connect more Ohioans to union apprenticeships in the skilled trades.
Everyone should have the opportunity to join the middle class, regardless of what path they take. If you can do the work, you should be able to get the job.
Sherrod Brown is the senior U.S. senator from Ohio.
