BA required. This tiny line is featured in many, if not most, Jewish communal positions. 

And yet, as we edge closer to 2025, we see more and more US companies and organizations are shifting toward equity in their job postings and dropping education requirements from their job postings.  As of January, 48% of Indeed postings included an education requirement, down from about 52% in 2019.  And the  percentage of job postings requiring at least a college degree has also decreased from 20.4% to 17.8% in the last five years. What is this about? How might we understand it?

First, let’s ask ourselves:  Is a college degree required to do the job we’re looking to fill?

Often, the answer is a hard no. We are looking to fill positions that require soft skills that are not currently part of the portfolio of skills that college students acquire in their 4 (or more) year education. The excellent critical thinking,  communication and high level writing skills, creativity, and collaboration (think back to Sir Ken Robinson) that we hope our learners will encounter in a 4 year college education is often not part of a college graduate’s portfolio and still continues to be built over a lifetime of personal and professional growth. So no, a college degree isn’t actually going to be the thing that will help us to identify the person who fulfills the criteria we need to fill for a particular role. 

Also, what kind of college degree?

Most job postings often just list a BA–a Bachelors of the Arts. It doesn’t say what kind of degree. It could be a degree in creative writing or one in the history of the ancient Near East, or philosophy. It may not have anything to do with the job, or everything to do with the job. And if it just lists a BA, an employer immediately leaves out those holding Bachelors of Science, or Bachelors of Fine Arts, two other degrees that also may teach learners creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication. So listing a BA is really unnecessary. 

Finally, an equity perspective. 

In 2024, not all folks have access to a college education, or may be at an advanced age (not 18-22) and may still be working on their college degree. College is insanely expensive, and a college degree is not easy to acquire because of the expense and the possibility of acquiring meaningful debt along the way. Additionally, non-traditional learners may not find the prospect of spending 4+ years in the classroom attractive when there’s a lot of life to be lived and a lot of work to get done. Those who want hands-on, practical experience–either in the field or even in the classroom–may choose a different route. Let us not rule out extraordinary opportunities to work with gifted employees because they have not been able to acquire a 4 year degree, either because of their financial circumstances or because they are not traditional learners. We cannot afford to rule out certain prospective employees simply because their route to our workplaces does not include a 4 year college experience. We want more diversity in our applicant pool; more diversity of perspective, more diversity of background, and too, more diversity of gender, race, family history, socioeconomic background and class, and much more. 

The question remains: can we be bold and remove the BA from our hiring requirements? Most of this is in our minds and in our own biases. We love a college degree. Can we step away from our love of education to believe that there are other ways to assess a candidate’s fit for a position? We invite you to think about the criteria you’re establishing for review of resumes, and how a candidate’s ability to acquire a 4 year college degree actually serves your goals. This may truly change your mind.