Real pushback: Corporate America eliminating college degree requirements for new hires – Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

According to a new survey of 800 American companies, about half say they have now dropped their requirement that new employees have a college degree, with some businesses replacing this requirement with actual apprenticeship programs.

For example, Accenture launched an apprenticeship program in 2016 through which it has since hired 1,200 people, CNBC reported. Some 80 percent of those people joined the company without a four-year-degree. 

Earlier this year, the company expanded the program with the goal of filling 20 percent of its US entry-level roles. ‘A person’s educational credentials are not the only indicators of success, so we advanced our approach to hiring to focus on skills, experiences and potential,’ CEO of Accenture North America, Jimmy Etheredge, told the outlet.

According to the report, 45% of all businesses surveyed intend to eliminate college degree requirements next year, while 55% say they have already done so. Major companies like Walmart, IBM, Facebook, Intel, and Microsoft have been public about their shift away from college degree requirments, while others like Google and Apple have done so more quietly.

According to this survey [pdf] from the Burning Glass Institute, which analyzed trends across 51 million job postings, this trend appeared to begin before the Wuhan panic, was accelerated significantly by it, but has continued subsequent. This short quote from that report however says it all:….