(New York Post) Employers don’t value college degrees as much as originally thought, recent survey data shows, and the disdain is behind a restored appreciation for blue-collar job-seekers that bring skill and experience over education.
The study, known as the Freedom Economy Index (FEI), a joint project of job recruiting service RedBalloon and PublicSquare, surveyed opinions from 70,000 small businesses between Oct. 25 and Oct. 30, with 905 respondents, a 3% margin of error and a 95% confidence level.
When asked about the “return on investment” of higher education, a whopping 67% of participating employers responded “strongly no” when asked if they believed institutions of higher education were “graduating students with relevant skills that today’s business community needs.”
An additional 24.4% responded with “somewhat no” while the remaining 8.7% responded either “somewhat yes,” “strongly yes,” or “other.”
“This doesn’t surprise me at all,” former construction worker and “Blue Collar Cash” author Ken Rusk said Sunday on “FOX & Friends Weekend.”
“Colleges used to be a place where you would get a degree, and that would only enhance an effective human being, an already effective human being. Now we’re seeing colleges attach these degrees to people that literally can’t come out and do some of the life skills that we need.”
Some who participated in the survey echoed that sentiment.
“The talent shortage will just get worse because high schools and colleges produce no talent,” one employer said.
College graduates, once favored in the job market, are now seemingly less valuable than their blue-collar counterparts.dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
Another called for skills to be taught in high school, while a third responded to the survey question with “Absolutely not,” calling advanced education a “waste” from the perspective of a former college graduate.
Rusk said job-seekers with college degrees pose a challenge in another way.
