America’s Obsession with Diplomas Is Killing Opportunity

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A Social Media Manager role is posted on LinkedIn by Executive Mosaic, a media production company in Tysons Corner, VA. Candidate qualifications include a bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, or a related field. The stated salary is barely enough to live on in that area. The role requires familiarity with basic tools like Canva, Hootsuite, and Google Analytics. But pause; why does anyone need a four-year degree to, essentially, manage social media—a skill most middle schoolers armed with an iPhone have efficiently mastered? Indeed, in this and myriad other cases, a diploma is superfluous at best—a YouTube tutorial and a free afternoon would do the trick.

Take a quick scroll through LinkedIn job postings; the bulk of job descriptions, even for entry-level positions, can be fairly reasserted, “Our company will expect you to perform some relatively mindless tasks, but a successful job candidate will have earned a college degree, evidencing the capacity to accomplish said mindless tasks.”

Consider an advertised copywriting position with Koch in Washington, DC; no salary is listed, which usually translates to “meager pay” on offer. Koch’s posting specifies that a bachelor’s degree will “put you ahead of other candidates.” The role involves writing timely copy, collaborating with clients, and focusing on user experience. But since when does writing copy or collaborating with clients require upwards of $140,000 in student loan debt—a high-end cost some students are paying for a degree in communications? If you’ve taken an English class and have a decent Wi-Fi connection, you could do this job.

So why is eligibility for employment so needlessly gatekept?

Degree inflation plays a key role in these warped workforce demands. Employers bear some blame for requiring degrees, while policymakers are at fault for fostering an environment where college is seen as the only path to a successful future. It’s no surprise, then, that the middle-skill job sector has been hit hardest by this growing wave of inflated credential requirements—if only James Burnham’s 1941 “managerial revolution” warning of a rising class using credentials to control labor had been heeded. Positions in administration, sales, and technical support rarely require the advanced training of a college degree, yet employers increasingly treat academic credentials as a stand-in for basic communication or tech proficiency.

A 2014 study by Burning Glass Technologies, reported in the Los Angeles Times, found that 65 percent of job postings for roles like office manager—positions that didn’t require a degree in past decades—now demanded a bachelor’s degree, despite no change in job duties. A decade later, the situation has only worsened: a 2024 study notes that only about half of bachelor’s degree graduates secure a college-level job within a year of graduating, even though an often-unrelated degree remains a prerequisite.

[RELATED: Do Degrees and Credentials Actually Prove Competence at Work?]

A DC political consultant I recently spoke with, who has recruited scores of people over his career, put it bluntly: “I view degree requirements as a measurement of cognitive ability and commitment … a way to gauge if someone’s not a complete idiot.”

Notwithstanding its coarseness, that mindset is widely shared among recruiters. A Texas attorney echoed the same sentiment, telling me that requiring a degree “serves as a credential system that, in a lot of cases, just proves bare minimum competency.” He added, “It’s kind of a situation where the employer can say, ‘Well, they can’t be a complete dumba**, they received a college degree at the very least,’ but there are many jobs out there where nothing you learn in college really applies in the real world.”

That mismatch between academic credentials and real-world skills, the Texas attorney alluded to, also holds true in a field you’d least expect: the legal profession. You wouldn’t hire a lawyer without a law degree—absurd, right? Heavy regulation of the profession demands that credential, of course. Yet legal experts openly admit there’s a disconnect, often watching JD-credentialed lawyers flail like fish out of water on the job.

Teresa Manning, Policy Director at the National Association of Scholars, said, “Law firms have long complained that law school graduates—who have also passed the bar—are not practice-ready when they are hired and that they, the law firms, must actually train new hires to do basic legal work. Think about that!”

“A law graduate has spent seven years to become a lawyer—four in undergraduate, then three in law school—has spent tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, and has lost even more money in forgone income during those years,” she said. “The graduate then spends time and money to take and pass the bar. And at the end of this long, expensive road, the graduate needs to be trained to be a lawyer? Why isn’t anyone asking about this?”

Perhaps it’s because lawyers have little incentive to solve the problem—after all, the courts helped create this over-credentialing mess.

The crisis traces back to the Supreme Court’s 1971 ruling in Griggs v. Duke Power, which deemed skills-based hiring tests a violation of the Civil Rights Act unless they could be justified as a “business necessity.” As George Leef, director of external relations at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, explains, the Court’s deference to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s “disparate impact” doctrine turned job testing into a “legal minefield.” To avoid lawsuits, employers began relying on college degrees as a safer stand-in for aptitude—queue the degree mill—driving up requirements for roles like sales or clerical work that never truly needed them. This shift funneled countless students into college, creating a financial windfall for universities while leaving the students with crushing debt.

Yet kids are still pushed into academia with promises of higher earnings and prestige tied to a degree—an assumption that needs unpacking. Many students are now sacrificing more than six years to earn a bachelor’s degree, time they could’ve spent working and investing, like starting a RothIRA. (Starting investing earlier, even with smaller contributions, typically outpaces later investments, even at higher amounts.) For most people, that second path would make far more sense. But sensible solutions have never been the forte of policymakers, the courts, many employers—and certainly not colleges. After all, what incentive do universities have to tell an 18-year-old high school graduate, “Don’t come”?

[RELATED: Degrees Have Value—But Employers Shouldn’t Require Them]

Instead, we’re left with a workforce credentialing system that prioritizes diplomas over demonstrated ability. Degree requirements have surged, yet wages have stagnated or failed to keep pace with inflation. As a result, many graduates—often overqualified or in mismatched roles—find themselves working jobs that don’t require their expensive education. To make matters worse, employers increasingly expect recent graduates to live in high-cost areas—despite knowing they’re saddled with student debt and earning wages that barely cover basic expenses. And all this, at a time when most white-collar work can be done remotely.

I speak from experience. For my first two years in Washington, DC, I lived in a walk-in closet—seriously, a walk-in closet—in a rundown rowhouse shared with about 14 other people—just to be able to work on Capitol Hill. My rent was $1,000 a month; my job paid $2,900 per month. And for all that, nothing I did required a formal degree. Things only stabilized after I persuaded my father to help cover rent for a studio apartment.

My story isn’t unusual. I know few people in DC who live independently without some form of family support—even well into their 30s and with masters degrees. So, this gap between credentials, wages, and the cost of living has become impossible to ignore. (For more on how wage stagnation and inflated job requirements are effecting recent graduates, check out the Virginia Association of Scholars News Roundup on YouTube.)

This leads to disengagement, higher turnover, and increased costs for employers, as jobs sit vacant because automated hiring systems filter out qualified non-grads. Ironically, the system screws over the very groups that the Court aimed to protect—lower-income individuals who have the skills but are shut out because they can’t afford college. It’s a recipe for national turmoil. Who can blame the kids for flirting with communism?

There’s hope, though. As Manning notes—and as I’ve previously reported—a shift is underway. States like Utah have eliminated degree requirements for public-sector jobs, favoring evaluations based on testable skills and verifiable experience. During his first term, President Donald Trump also signed an executive order shifting the federal government’s focus from a job candidate’s college degree to their actual job skills. The private sector is expected to follow, which could finally diminish the degree’s role as an unchallenged gatekeeper to gainful employment. Meanwhile, more students are choosing affordable certificate programs in practical fields over the traditional four-year degree path. It’s a small step, but maybe—just maybe—it’s the start of a workforce that values what you can do over the degrees listed on your resume.

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