Hiring people with college degrees no longer pays for many employers. This might be because college degree holders no longer have higher IQs than the general public. “In recent decades, the intelligence quotient of university students and university graduates dropped to the average of the general population,” notes science writer Rolf Degen. “The results” of a recent study in Frontiers of Psychology “show that the average IQ of undergraduate students today is a mere 102 IQ points and declined by approximately 0.2 IQ points per year” since the mid-20th Century.
Many students learn little in college and can’t write coherently when they graduate. Nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates learned almost nothing in their first two years in college over a decade ago, according to a 2011 study by New York University’s Richard Arum and others. Thirty-six percent learned little even by graduation.
So it is probably good news that Philadelphia’s mayor issued an executive order removing ending degree requirements for “many” city jobs. “We will continue to remove college degree requirements for many City of Philadelphia jobs where it is unnecessary,” recently-elected Mayor Cherelle Parker says in her 100-day action plan.
The elimination of many college degree requirements is listed under “economic opportunity.” The city also will try to do a better job of publicizing jobs that do not require degrees, the plan says.
Higher Ed Dive reports she signed the executive order “hours after her inauguration” Jan. 2. As The College Fix, notes “The move comes one year after Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, eliminated bachelor’s degree requirements for 92 percent of state positions. It also furthers a trend seen nationwide among government leaders rescinding college degree requirements for jobs. In 2022, Republican governors Spencer Cox in Utah and Larry Hogan in Maryland also eliminated degree requirements for many state jobs, as reported by The Fix last year.”
Higher Ed Dive reports:
Public sector employers aren’t the only ones shifting their candidate requirements. Walmart, for example, announced last fall that it would drop degree requirements for some corporate roles.
Companies are embracing the change across a range of titles and levels: 55% of employers in an Intelligent.com survey said they had dropped degree requirements for entry-level and mid-level positions.
