Most Employers Still Value College Degrees

A new survey shows that employers still prefer to hire workers with college degrees. But only 54 percent of those same employers say students are graduating with the skills their organizations need.

On Tuesday, Gallup and the Lumina Foundation published the results of a survey of 2,000 United States–based employers conducted earlier this year. The findings come amid continued public skepticism about the value of a college degree and recent moves by a number of private companies and state governments—including IBM, Delta Airlines and the governments of Maryland and Florida—to drop degree requirements for many positions.

According to the survey, 23 percent of employers say their organizations have removed degree requirements in the past three years, while another 20 percent said they’re in the process of doing so. Despite those changing requirements, 76 percent of employers prefer candidates who have a four-year degree and 78 percent prefer those with a two-year degree.

But the vast majority of those workers still require some additional training or skills development to perform their jobs effectively, employers said. The survey found that 20 percent of recent college graduates needed “a little” extra training, 49 percent needed “a moderate amount” and 20 percent needed “a great deal.”

“Taken together, these findings reinforce a clear message for policymakers, educators and workforce leaders: Employers still see higher education as a core driver of job success and talent competitiveness, even amid broader concerns about the ROI of a college degree,” the authors of the report wrote. “Yet employers’ optimism about the value of degrees sits alongside persistent concerns about skills and readiness.”