The Emerging Degree Reset: How the Shift to Skills-Based Hiring Holds the Keys to Growing the U.S. Workforce at a Time of Talent Shortage

Employers are resetting degree requirements in a wide range of roles, dropping the requirement for a bachelor’s degree in many middle-skill and even some higher-skill roles. This reverses a trend toward degree inflation in job postings going back to the Great Recession. And while the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated this process, this reset began before the crisis and is likely to continue after it. • Some 46% of middle-skill and 31% of high-skill occupations experienced material degree resets between 2017 and 2019. • Only 27% of the changing occupations could be considered “cyclical resets,” or short-term responses to the pandemic. The majority (63%) appear to be “structural resets” that began before the pandemic, representing a measured and potentially permanent shift in hiring practices. • When employers drop degrees, they become more specific about skills in job postings, spelling out the soft skills that may have been assumed to come with a college education, such as writing, communication, and being detail-oriented. This reset could have major implications for how employers find talent and open up opportunities for the two-thirds of Americans without a college education. Based on these trends, we project that an additional 1.4 million jobs could open to workers without college degrees over the next five years.