Should Companies Continue to Require Applicants to Have A Major Degree?
Overview
This argumentative essay challenges the traditional practice of requiring college degrees as a primary hiring requirement, asserting that degree requirements constitute discrimination favoring wealthy applicants and do not guarantee job competency. The author argues that companies should instead focus on skills assessment and consider hiring qualified candidates without degrees, as degree holders often require costly retraining and college dropouts may provide better value.
What this essay covers
- Introduction establishing the debate on degree requirements as a hiring criterion
- Argument that degree requirements discriminate against economically disadvantaged candidates
- Claim that college degrees do not guarantee job skills or competency
- Economic analysis of retraining costs for degree holders versus training non-degree applicants
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Should Companies Continue to Require Applicants to Have A Major Degree?
Most people, I included, seek education to get skills that will enable them to secure a good job, get a good salary and have a good life. Most companies and organizations lookout for such candidates with the best skills that will see their companies and firms grow exponentially and even be on top of all their competitors. The most laborious task comes when, where, and how to gauge which candidates have the required skills. This is the point where degree requirements while hiring are required. David et al., in The Value of Post Secondary Credentials in the Labor Market. An Experimental Study: American Economic Review (2016), claim that most of the profit-based companies value an individual's skills more than their credentials (Deming et al., 790). Many firms have, for a long time, have been using and probably still using the level of education and the attained college degree to hire suitable and qualified candidates. However, this should not be the case. It is discrimination of the highest order. The discrimination that was brought by the regulations that use a degree to gauge the skills that one possesses. I am against this traditional practice that companies should continue to require applicants to have a major degree.
Degrees have been a privilege for a particular social class, those with enough money to pay for college fees comfortably.