SB: College Degrees Required

[HR]

SB: College Degrees Required?

Hed: Degreed or Not Degreed: That Is the Question

Deck: Companies find that some top applicants come without college degrees.

Summary: In a tight labor market, some employers have been hiring IT workers who haven't graduated from college. Is this risky business? Consider the pros and cons.

Pull quote: "In the new economy, we have to evaluate old paradigms."—David Marin, spokesperson for Rep. Tom Davis.

By Evelyn Beck for Office.com
workers will go unfilled."

What's a college degree worth these days? Not much, says Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle.

This college dropout, who amassed a $50 billion fortune through his e-business database software, shocked Yale's graduating class of 2000 by calling them a bunch of losers in his commencement speech last June. "You are a write-off," he said, "so I'll let you slink off to your pathetic $200,000-a-year jobs, where your checks will be signed by former classmates who dropped out two years ago."

Like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell, Ellison left college early to build an empire. While few college dropouts are likely to achieve such status, this new breed of entrepreneur has changed public perception about what qualifies someone to excel in the new economy.

Indeed, employers increasingly are hiring skilled technical employees who lack a four-year college degree. Of course, they have little choice, given the shortage of IT workers.

Consider the evidence: According to Bureau of Labor Statistics predictions, IT jobs will grow by 32 percent from 1998 to 2008 at the same time that the number of students receiving four-year computer science degrees is shrinking. A 2000 study by Arlington, Va.-based Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) forecast that half the 1.6 million job openings for IT workers would go unfilled last year.

Fortunately, employers are discovering that college training isn't necessarily the best method of mastering skills in Web design, network administration and desktop publishing. Sometimes qualified candidates have learned enough on their own without a formal education, says Kenneth Plunk, VP of product development at Powered, an Austin, Texas company that develops online courses to draw visitors to Web sites.

Federal Government Relaxes Educational Requirements

That's certainly the reasoning behind a new law sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), dropping the requirement that IT professionals working on government contracts have four-year college degrees. Signed into law by President Clinton in October as part of the Defense Authorization Act, the Federal Contractor Flexibility Act of 2000 requires federal agencies to justify the use of minimum education and experience requirements.

"The requirement for a college degree was adding an additional burden for businesses," says Harris Miller, president of ITAA.

"We think the government will get better results if it issues performance-based standards and leaves it up to the vendor to how it will satisfy the requirements," says David Marin, a spokesperson for the congressman. "The way the law was before, Bill Gates wouldn't have been allowed to perform contract work for the federal government. In the new economy, we have to evaluate old paradigms."

Until 30 years ago, employers used I.Q. tests to measure applicants' intelligence. But after the 1970 U.S. Supreme Court case of Griggs v. Duke Power Co.. that ruled intelligence tests discriminatory, firms stopped placing much importance on them. Thus, a four-year college degree became the standard for evaluating skills and intelligence.

But at a time when pressure to hire those without degrees is great, how does an employer choose the right candidate without a college transcript or I.Q. test as a roadmap?

Measuring Specific Skills

"In the interview process, for someone without a degree, we're looking for specific skills in (Web) development," says Plunk. "We talk about what they've done, how they did it, and ask them to give examples of their coding style."

At Yclip, an Austin, Texas-based provider of advertising infrastructure and information services, CEO Luis Gonzalez focuses on applicants' past accomplishments. "Their direct managers and peers are able to look at where they've worked, see how current they are on trends," he says. "It becomes readily apparent whether someone has skills or not. We look for follow-through, not only that they're gifted at particular tasks, but that they were part of finishing big projects in their work history."

Elliott Frutkin, CEO of Doceus, an e-business solutions company in Washington, D.C., cites a similar experience. "We have a senior person here now," he says. "We hired him from Golf.com as a senior developer without needing to worry about whether he had a college degree or not because he had experience and skills at a high traffic site."

There are also technical and desktop certification programs for certain computer-related skills. "In the labor market, for those types of occupations, those certifications will be just as or more important to employers as college degrees," says J. Michael Farr, author of America's Top Jobs for People Without a Four-Year Degree (JIST, 2000).

But even if they can do the job, do workers without college degrees lack some vital skills possessed by their more educated colleagues?

College Grads Are Goal-Oriented

Based on years of experience in hiring candidates with and without college credentials, some employers have come to feel that the act of getting the degree speaks volumes about an applicant's character. "You know they had the stick-to-it-iveness to get that degree, that they stay with something for a period of time to achieve a goal," says Plunk. "A college degree brings to you a person you know is going to be goal-oriented. That's important when working on projects."

"People with a college degree tend to finish things that are hard to do," says Farr. "They tend to do better in the labor market over time." And, he adds, even for a skilled technical worker, the lack of a college degree can become a drawback over time. "Things keep coming up that are not specific to a special job—teamwork, interpersonal communications, meeting deadlines, the ability to present your ideas and discuss things and present your solutions." The life experience of a college degree, Farr says, can help provide these abilities.

Elliott Frutkin would tend to agree -- even though he himself dropped out of American University to start Doceus. "The college experience is important in terms of maturity, the experience away from home, learning to socialize in a different atmosphere. I wouldn't have been successful if I hadn't gone to college at all," he says, adding that after he quit school, he continued to live in his fraternity house.

Yclip's Gonzalez didn't finish college, either, although he still plans to return for a degree in business someday. "It's one of the missing links in what I've done," he says. "I've spent literally 12 years developing business management skills. It's a terribly inefficient process. A degree would help give a more linear path to the way I make decisions."

In a paper titled "Why does it take a college degree to be a computer professional?" Professor George Corliss of Marquette University wrote that the degree enables an individual to better understand the company's and client's business mission, learn new skills, think critically and communicate well.

However, the current job market may encourage more IT professionals to forgo college. "There's a trend now where young males are not going to college in the rates they used to," says Farr. "There are a lot of wonderful jobs for people without four-year degrees. Employers are getting a lot more flexible about this degree business because they have to."

Degreed or Not Degreed?

But will the lack of a degree hurt an employee with ambition?

"You'd like to say that promotional opportunities aren't limited for those without a degree," says Gonzalez, whose workforce of 90 includes perhaps half a dozen without degrees. "There are great stories of people who've risen without one. But it (a college degree) must be important. Here (at Yclip), a degree in business management is almost a requirement." Thus, whenever Gonzalez hires employees without a college diploma, he advises them "to go back and get a degree as soon as they can."

At Doceus, though, there's less focus on college diplomas and less concern about any accomplishments not directly related to the job. "That's one thing that's much different working at a company run by new generation people," says Frutkin. "If you work for an established company with a 65-year-old CEO, and you're 30, it's hard to be promoted over someone 45 who's been there the same amount of time. Here we look at individuals and what they've contributed with no regard to education or background or age."

Ultimately, whether a company hires and promotes non-college grads is a function of its culture and the CEO's experience and vision. Perhaps the increasingly common solution will be the one taken by Powered. "We have a mix of those with and without degrees," says Plunk. "It takes both to have a productive shop."

SB: College Degrees Required

College Grads Are Goal-Oriented

Degreed or Not Degreed?

But will the lack of a degree hurt an employee with ambition?

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