America’s bachelor’s degree obsession is killing the economy. Here’s why.

America’s bachelor degree obsession is killing the economy and holding back millions of talented workers. Now there’s a bold campaign to ditch degree requirements, and it could unleash a whole new skilled workforce.

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Americans today are caught in a broken labor market, where millions of open jobs are left unfilled due to a gap between what colleges are teaching and what employers need, and in turn, millions of people with bachelor’s degrees aren’t finding the jobs they’d set out to achieve when they embarked on their studies. But even more starkly, millions of skilled workers without 4-year degrees are being screened out by employers who perpetuate outdated degree requirements when hiring.

Economist and former White House advisor Byron Auguste says that this “paper ceiling” is causing companies to miss out on an enormous pool of untapped talent, and restricting economic mobility for millions of skilled Americans. But now that paper ceiling is being torn apart. In an effort to rewire the U.S. labor market, Byron's organization Opportunity@Work is leading a movement of employers to hire based on skills, rather than degrees.

Their solution is a data-driven platform that helps companies identify available talent pools with the required skills, rather than just filtering by degrees. Already more than 65 major employers have joined their "Tear the Paper Ceiling" campaign, opening up nearly 30,000 roles in the first year by dropping degree requirements. This skills-based approach recognizes the 70 million "STARs" in America: workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes like on-the-job training.

By enabling 1 million STARs to attain better career paths over the next decade, Opportunity@Work's campaign could help these workers earn an estimated $20 billion more annually. Their innovative model promotes economic mobility and solves the labor shortage by connecting companies to a previously overlooked talent pool. This focus on skills over pedigree could create a win-win for workers and employers — and stands to totally reshape the workforce as we know it.

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