RECOMMENDED READING
WASHINGTON, DC â The promise underpinning recent decades of Americaâs âcollege-for-allâ approach to education is that we need a highly educated workforce to meet the demands of the globalized economy. But while employers lament âskills gapsâ and colleges demand more resources, the reality is that America is overproducing college graduates for an economy that does not have enough degree-requiring jobs to employ them. A new American Compass report by Oren Cass finds that from 2000 to 2019, the U.S. added more than 20 million college graduates to the workforce, but only 10 million new BA-requiring jobs, leaving millions of Americans underemployed.
Globalizationâs premise was that as working-class jobs moved overseas, well-paying careers requiring higher education would take their place, leaving American workers and the economy better off. When this failed to materialize, many policymakers, employers, and analysts assumed that the problem was with insufficient education and training and pushed ever more students into the college pipeline. The reality, however, is that this vision of the workforce of the future is misguided. Cassâs new analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data finds:
- From 2000 to 2019, bachelorâs degree holders accounted for 97% of net workforce growth, but 41% of net job growth required a high school degree or less.
- Only those workers who manage to secure jobs requiring a bachelorâs degree (BA jobs) have experienced significant wage gains. As of 2019, BA jobs still accounted for just 27% of the labor market, but they managed to capture 75% of the total 2000â19 increase in wages paid economy-wide.
- Only BA jobs saw an upward shift in distribution across wage levels. Overall, average wages rose four times faster in BA jobs than other jobs, even as those other jobs were increasingly filled by BA holders.
- The labor market saw a net shift of 4 million workers from high-school-or-less to some-college, but it added only 1 million jobs requiring some college.
Recommended Reading
The False Promise of Good Jobs
While the share of American jobs requiring a college degree has increased in recent decades, the share of workers holding college degrees has risen much faster.
Policy Brief: Workforce Training Grant
Congress should create a Workforce Training Grantâa $10,000-per-year grant to employers for each trainee engaged in on-the-job training.
How to Fix Widespread Buyerâs Remorse in Education
Almost two-thirds of U.S. high school graduates enroll immediately in some form of postsecondary education with a clear-cut motive. In 2019, 83.5% of entering freshmen said that getting a better job was a âvery importantâ reason for attending college, up from a 1976 low of 68%. Are these expectations realized? Mostly no.
