Harris Doesn’t Think You Should Need a 4-Year Degree

Vice President Kamala Harris wants to build more homes and expand the child tax credit as part of her vision to create a so-called opportunity economy. As of last Friday, that plan now also includes ensuring “good-paying jobs are available to all Americans, not just those with college degrees,” she said, highlighting the latest shifts in how Democratic lawmakers think about postsecondary education.

“For far too long, our nation has encouraged only one path to success: a four-year college degree,” Harris told a crowd last Friday at a rally in Pennsylvania, to uproarious cheers and applause. “Our nation needs to recognize the value of other paths, additional paths, such as apprenticeships and technical programs.”

She also vowed to nix unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs and challenged “the private sector to do the same,” arguing degrees aren’t necessarily a proxy for skills. Her opponent, former president Donald Trump, similarly issued an executive order in 2020 to eliminate degree requirements for some federal jobs.

Harris’s remarks reflect a broader, national conversation about nondegree pathways to well-paying jobs and a policy shift for the Democratic Party, which once put a premium on students getting bachelor’s degrees and in recent years emphasized proposals to make college more accessible. The comments were also a glimpse into Harris’s higher ed agenda—details of which have been scant. She has touted, on her campaign website, the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive student loans and pledged to make higher education more affordable “so that college can be a ticket to the middle class.”

Now she appears to be advocating for alternative routes to the middle class, which higher ed lobbyists say they don’t see as a threat but rather an opportunity for colleges to keep growing their offerings. Skeptics of nondegree credentials, however, have expressed trepidation about her rhetoric and the overall shift it represents. Employer-focused groups welcomed the plan, which comes at a time when more employers are embracing a skills-based hiring approach and Americans over all are increasingly questioning the cost and value of higher education.

Friday was the first time Harris has emphasized the importance of nondegree pathways on the campaign trail, said Maria Flynn, CEO of Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit focused on the intersection of education and the workforce. But it isn’t the first time Harris has shown interest in such issues. In 2019, as a senator, she introduced the 21st Century SKILLS Act, which didn’t pass but would have expanded funding pots for workers and job seekers to use for training programs.

Still, Flynn sees Harris’s pledge as representative of a move away from the “college for all” era to a more widespread embrace of other career training options, by Democrats and Republicans alike.

A bipartisan push for alternatives is “a relatively new and I think encouraging dynamic,” she said. “It is becoming more of a both-and conversation rather than an either-or conversation, which I think is kind of where we were 15, 20 years ago.”

A Bipartisan Issue

The notion that learners need alternative training options might be one of the few points Harris, Trump and their respective parties can agree on.

Trump’s executive order shifted federal hiring processes to focus on skills over degrees, and the 2024 Republican Party platform promises to support “additional, drastically more affordable alternatives to a traditional four-year college degree.” Meanwhile, the Democratic Party platform calls for free community and technical college and refers to past and future investments in registered apprenticeships and career and technical education. The platform also notes, “Four-year college is not the only pathway to a good career.”

The move away from degrees is happening at the state level as well.

At least 16 states, either through legislative action or governors’ order, no longer require a degree for most state jobs, the National Conference of State Legislatures noted in a 2023 brief. Former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, was the first to shed degree requirements in 2022, and then a slew of governors across the political spectrum followed suit, including in Alaska, California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia.

Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate, joined that list in October 2023, ordering the state’s employment agency to develop a hiring process that “emphasizes skills and work experience,” with degrees “as a minimum qualification only as necessary.” Former president Barack Obama praised Walz for that decision on the Democratic National Convention stage last month, noting, “College shouldn’t be the only ticket to the middle class.” (As president, Obama called for every American to have at least one year or more of higher education or career training.)

Federal and state lawmakers are wise to zero in on alternative modes of training, because polls show skills-based learning and hiring matter to voters on both sides of the aisle, said Robert Espinosa, CEO of the National Skills Coalition, an organization focused on access to skills training.

A poll of 1,000 registered voters that his organization published in March found that 91 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of Republicans and 83 percent of Independents want to see increased public investment in skills training. Meanwhile, 83 percent of Democrats, 57 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of Independents reported they’re more likely to support a candidate who champions funding for skills training. Similarly, a Morning Consult survey of 2,045 voters, conducted on behalf of Jobs for the Future, found that 84 percent of voters over all said encouraging employers to embrace skills-based hiring over degrees was somewhat or very important to them this election cycle.

Espinosa said Harris’s remarks reflect “where we are as a country.” At the end of the day, job seekers’ experiences cross party lines.

“I think people recognize it … in our families and in our communities, our workers want access to good jobs, and they don’t always pursue the four-year degree, or it remains unaffordable, and so removing these unnecessary requirements creates a different economic picture for them,” he said.

Wesley Whistle, project director for student success and affordability at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said that while he agrees four-year degrees shouldn’t be required when unnecessary, he worries about all the rhetoric pushing nondegree credentials, given that the economic benefits of many of these programs remain unclear.

Faster, cheaper routes to well-paying jobs sound great “on paper,” he said. But “how many of the nondegree pathways lead to those good jobs? What we’ve seen is that a lot of existing certificate programs have mixed outcomes.” Alternative credentials “can lead to these good-paying jobs, but it’s not a guarantee, and we don’t necessarily have a lot of consumer protection around them.”

He added that research shows students in college still see value in their education. And for most politicians touting nondegree pathways, “their children are going to four-year schools,” Whistle said. “They went to four-year schools and often beyond.”

Implications for Higher Ed

Some higher ed leaders say a shift away from bachelor’s degrees might seem like a challenge to their institutions, but they see it as recognition of higher ed’s expanding role.

Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education, said bachelor’s degrees still come with a proven earnings premium and valuable skills. He noted that Democrats’ focus on proposals like student loan forgiveness and free college seems to have given way to a stronger emphasis on multiple pathways to careers.

But he believes most college presidents and educators agree that degrees shouldn’t be the only option, yet “the way our workforce is, the way our workforce is going, you need some level of postsecondary education,” whether that’s an associate degree, certificate or workforce training program. He said plenty of institutions, such as regional public universities, are already offering or developing those alternatives to meet student and employer needs.

“The framing is often, is this sort of proposal a threat to higher education?” he said. “And on the contrary, I think colleges have been doing this for a long time and would like to do more of this and are open to the kinds of students who want to explore those possibilities.”

Harris’s promise to nix degree requirements “doesn’t undercut the idea that Vice President Harris supports the value of higher education—we’ve seen comments from some other politicians that do,” Fansmith added. “It’s just more an embrace of the way that higher education has to serve people in different ways.”

Growing national interest in varied credential pathways bodes well for community colleges, which largely offer nondegree options already, said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and policy analysis at the American Association of Community Colleges. He pointed out that some institutions are also adopting competency-based education models, which give students college credits for their work skills and experiences.

“Our colleges would welcome a continued focus on job readiness, job skills, career-oriented preparation and industry-directed training,” he said, though he added that transfer to universities remains a “huge part” of community colleges’ mission.

He also stressed that skills training programs are more expensive to provide than your classic liberal arts courses, given they can require buying expensive equipment and offering higher instructor wages to compete with industry salaries. So, he hopes political rhetoric in favor of nondegree pathways results in more state funding to produce these programs.

Flynn similarly said she’s heartened by references to alternative credentials in both party platforms, but she’s eager to see how that translates into policy plans from the two presidential candidates.

“The federal government has a critical role to play in making more investments in navigational supports, really looking at how do we best provide financing to nondegree options,” she said, noting that legislation to expand Pell Grants to workforce training programs remains stalled in Congress. “It’s exciting to see this be a hot topic, but I think the next question is going to be, what are the specific proposals that will be put forward?”