Forgoing the Four-Year Degree

Add Pennsylvania to the list of states to eliminate education requirements for many of its government jobs.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro recently signed an executive order that abolishes four-year college degree requirements for state job listings, directing the state to put an emphasis on competencies and relevant experience when considering candidates.

“The Commonwealth is committed to increasing economic opportunity for all people of Pennsylvania by creating new pathways to public employment,” the order reads. “This means that approximately 65,000 jobs can be filled by people that possess the relevant work experience and skills-based training, regardless of their educational attainment.”

The executive order—Shapiro’s first since becoming governor—is effective immediately and applies to 92% of all Commonwealth jobs. The state’s secretary of administration will review the remaining 8% of state positions with a college-degree prerequisite, to determine which job classifications are appropriate to include practical experience, in lieu of, or in addition to, a four-year college degree requirement, according to the order.

“I want to make it clear to all Pennsylvanians, whether they went to college or they gained experience through work, job training or an apprenticeship program: we value your skills and talents, and we want you to apply for a job with the Commonwealth,” Shapiro said at a press briefing announcing the order.

Putting Skills First

As PSHRA recently reported, the House recently passed The Chance to Compete Act, which seeks “to implement merit-based reforms to the civil service hiring system that replace degree-based hiring with skills- and competency-based hiring, and for other purposes.”

If successful in the Senate, the bill would attempt to “make hiring more targeted through subject-matter expert interviews and skills tests,” wrote The Federal Times’ Molly Weisner, noting that such tools  “can reduce reliance on paper credentials and whittle down applicant pools for hiring managers, thereby saving time and ensuring candidates are truly a good match for the work.”

“The private sector already uses such structured interviews, knowledge tests and writing samples for the hiring process,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said on the House floor. “It is time the federal government does too.”

The bill gained overwhelmingly (and extremely rare) bipartisan support in the House, passing by a 422-2 margin on its way to the Senate for consideration.

And, some states have already taken it upon themselves to start shifting the emphasis from education to skills and experience when hiring for government positions.

In March 2022, for example, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced that many of the state’s government roles would no longer require four-year degrees, as part of a new initiative aimed at expanding job opportunities throughout the Old Line State. At the time of Hogan’s announcement, the state of Maryland had more than 8,600 vacant positions within its executive branch.

“Thousands of [Maryland] state jobs in every department will be open to applicants with relevant experience and training, particularly in the information technology, administrative and customer-service sectors, which previously required a college degree,” the Baltimore Sun reported.

More recently, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox rolled out a new skills-first hiring initiative for the state’s government.

“When we’ve got jobs to fill, the state of Utah now reduces barriers to hiring by removing bias toward educational requirements that cannot be tied to specific job duties and requirements,” said Cox, adding that 98% of the nearly 1,100 classified jobs in Utah’s executive branch do not require an advanced degree.

“Degrees have become a blanketed barrier to entry in too many jobs. Instead of focusing on demonstrated competence, the focus too often has been on a piece of paper,” said Cox. “We are changing that.”

Shapiro is hopeful that removing four-year degree requirements will do the same in his state.

“Every Pennsylvanian should have the freedom to chart their own course and have a real opportunity to succeed,” he said. “They should get to decide what’s best for them—whether they want to go to college or straight into the workforce—not have that decided for them.”