I agree with Baba, in certain fields a technical degree can be worth more, especially if you have on the job training or an internship. Those opportunities help you get your foot in the door for a possible job opening or positive reference.
One of my latest work projects involves researching the educational requirements for hundreds of jobs across dozens of industries, and in the past I did some work for a site that offered a selection of hard/ soft skills training courses/ certifications. I actually ghost-wrote a few courses, too, but that's a different thing altogether.
The trend right now is that degrees are still required, but niche-specific certifications are required on top of it, particularly in anything that relates to IT/ computers/ tech. Marketing, sales, and a few other industries show the same tendencies. A few industries, like finance, medicine, and law don't have the same trends, but they do have extensive licensing requirements and being part of specialty-specific organizations is key- sometimes even mandated in order to keep a license. Many of the professional organizations have requirements for continuing education.
It's also worth noting that employers no longer want to train employees to do anything, so people in various job markets increasingly have to take additional workshops/ training for random hard and soft skills ranging from leadership to Excel- the things college degrees don't always cover. And, if you get into development or something along those lines, you really have to learn a ton of languages, frameworks, and different types of software in order to get in anywhere. There's certainly money to be made in those fields, but the educational demands are extensive and ongoing. There are some places you can get into without a degree as a basis, but those employers want you to have the equivalent in experience. How exactly you get that when nobody will hire you without a degree is quite the challenge.
My prediction is not that degrees will become obsolete, but that employers will continue to set lofty expectations for candidates that people won't be able to meet without loads of niche-specific training in addition to their degrees.
Great, first they made HS diploma meaningless so you needed a degree, now they are making college degrees meaningless so you need to pay the Universities MORE money for another piece of paper. Way to go progress.
I wouldn't go that far. It's not just paper you're paying for. Careers aren't just broad careers anymore. They're very specific and targeted. To give an example of something I know pretty well, I could define my broad career as Marketing. If I got a degree in marketing, I would learn about various modes of marketing, consumer psychology, branding, conversions, market research, and a handful of other types of related things. My marketing degree could possibly get me into a job in general marketing, sales, advertising, public relations, and maybe a few other careers.
But, I'm not just a marketer, I'm a digital marketer, so in my case, having a digital marketing degree or a marketing degree with a focus on digital marketing would be more beneficial. If I started off with general marketing, I'd still need to learn about content marketing, SEO, pay-per-click ads, social media marketing, analytics, sales funnels, and more.
Now, I can apply to a digital marketing firm or a marketing firm because I know all these things, but each firm specializes in something different and uses different tools. There are dozens of analytical tools, automation tools, and programs designed to help me do my job. For example, I can become a Google Partner, a certification offered exclusively by Google, that demonstrates I can run effective advertising campaigns on their AdWords platform. Let's say you need help running a Google AdWords campaign- you're probably going to choose the person who is a Google Partner to do it, provided you know what that certification means. You want the specialist to help you, not a general marketer, and not just a digital marketer- an AdWords specialist.
When you really get into it, there are specialists for everything, and I, personally, want to hire the best-suited person for a job. I'm betting you do too. I mean, if I need to have a wall built in my house, I may well do a search for a general contractor, a builder, or even a handyman, but even as a novice, I'm going to look for testimonials about that person that relate to my project, and I'm going to look for pictures of similar projects the person has worked on. And, yeah, I'm going to want someone who is licensed. But, if there was some authority who could tell me a certain group of people were expert wall-builders, I'm going to trust that authority did its homework, and will probably hire from that list.
I recently uploaded an app called Takl- it's designed to connect people with professionals who can perform services. Well, to humor myself, I looked at the pricing. In my area, it costs $45 to have someone change 8 light bulbs and $50 to have someone change 5 smoke detector batteries. LOL Yeah, needless to say, I won't be using Takl. But here's where it gets really crazy- if you read Takl reviews, they complain about how the people who come out to do jobs aren't qualified. One guy hired someone to do a microwave installation. The installer broke the microwave, told the guy he got in over his head, and left with the job undone. Another person hired someone to clean a bathroom. A general handyman showed up, and surprise surprise, he didn't clean half the bathroom, and what he did do, he didn't do well. Even on a small scale like this, you still want someone who knows what he's doing. I'm not going to call a plumber to do electrical work or a house cleaner to do interior design. I think most people operate that way. It sucks that a degree isn't enough anymore, but we all want experts, no matter what the job at hand is.
Yeah but maybe of they got rid of the BS prereqs like humanities and liberal art crap and just focused on actual useful career and job oriented stuff one piece of paper would be enough. Same goes with High school. Need to cut out all the useless fluff in education and make it about getting work.
ally 