87% of Job Categories Dropped Degree Requirements Since 2019: What That Means for Your Education Decision
Why Companies Like Google, IBM, and Apple No Longer Require College Degrees (2/5)
The Higher Education Lab | Credential Collapse Series (1/5)
The business graduate sits across from me with a credential problem she doesn’t know how to name. Good school, not elite, but solid. GPA of 3.4. Summer internship at a consulting firm. She followed the script. Sent out 73 applications over four months. Three interviews. One offer: customer support for a SaaS company, €19 per hour, no benefits for the first 90 days.
“I thought the degree was supposed to open doors,” she says.
It was. Twenty years ago.
What Changed in the Labor Market
Indeed’s 2024 analysis of job postings tracked a structural shift that most families haven’t noticed yet. Between 2019 and 2024, the share of US job openings requiring no formal degree rose from 48% to 52%. That’s not a trend — that’s a threshold crossing. For the first time in modern history, more than half of available jobs explicitly do not require university credentials.
The change isn’t uniform across industries. Software development positions saw the most dramatic shift: 87% of job categories dropped formal education requirements entirely (LinkedIn, 2024). But the pattern extends beyond tech. Healthcare administration, project management, digital marketing, data analysis…fields that built careers on credential requirements are now hiring based on demonstrated capability.
This isn’t employers becoming charitable. It’s employers realizing that credential filters were screening out exactly the talent they needed.
Companies that rewrote job descriptions around skills rather than degrees expanded their candidate pools by 6.1 times and saved between $7,800 and $22,500 per hire (IQ Talent Partners, 2025). When you filter by degree, you’re selecting for people who had the time, money, and risk tolerance to complete a four-year program. That’s not nothing, but it’s not what employers thought they were measuring.
The credential was supposed to signal capabilities. What companies discovered is that the signal had decoupled from the substance.
The Employer Calculation
Think about what a university degree actually measures from an employer’s perspective. It tells you someone:
Showed up to classes for four years
Passed examinations in various subjects
Managed deadlines well enough to graduate
Had family support or debt tolerance to finance the experience
What it doesn’t tell you:
Whether they can execute projects under real constraints
How they handle client feedback and iteration
If they can build something from ambiguous requirements
Whether they write clearly for professional audiences
How they perform when the answer isn’t in a textbook
McKinsey’s research on human capital found that skills learned on the job account for 46% of lifetime earnings (2023). The diploma is a one-time signal that’s weakening. Capability compounds.
Organizations that shifted to skills-based hiring didn’t just expand talent pools; they improved retention rates by 8–12% because they were selecting for actual fit rather than credential possession (BCG, 2024). The people who can demonstrate competencies without the traditional pathway often bring stronger intrinsic motivation. They had to prove themselves without the credential safety net.
Who This Affects
If you’re a young person investing four years and €80,000 or more in a credential, you’re making a bet on what the labor market will value in 2028. The evidence suggests that bet is riskier than it was a decade ago, not because education lacks value, but because the diploma itself has decoupled from the capabilities it’s supposed to signal.
This matters for parents evaluating whether university is still the safest path. The traditional calculus was: “University is expensive, but it guarantees access to professional work.” That guarantee has weakened substantially. University still has value. The diploma no longer assures returns.
And it matters for employers who are still filtering by credentials without realizing they’re limiting their own hiring options. When you require a degree, you’re not just screening for education; you’re screening for socioeconomic access to four-year programs. You’re excluding people who learned through different pathways, often the exact builders and self-directed learners your organization needs.
What’s Replacing the Old Model
The market is rewarding different signals now. At the World Economic Forum’s 2024 meeting in Davos, global leaders identified entrepreneurship and AI literacy, not credentialed labor, as primary engines of future job creation. McKinsey’s analysis of venture performance found that expert builders generate 12 times more revenue in a venture’s fifth year compared to operators without building experience (2023).
The premium isn’t for having a degree. It’s for knowing how to build.
This creates a different kind of educational challenge. If the market values demonstrated capabilities over accumulated credentials, then education should be structured around producing verifiable outputs, not maximizing examination scores.
Organizations like Pluralsight and Guild Education grew by helping employers assess skills directly rather than using degrees as proxies. LinkedIn expanded skills endorsements and project showcases specifically because hiring managers wanted evidence they could verify, not credentials they had to trust.
The infrastructure has already changed. What hasn’t changed yet is how most families think about education investment.
How One Institution Responded
This is why the Paris School of Entrepreneurship redesigned the Bachelor and Master degree around demonstrated competencies rather than exam performance.
PSE is an independent private higher education institution recognized by France’s Ministry of Education, offering Bachelor (3–4 years), Master (2 years), and PhD (3 years) programs that work fundamentally differently from traditional models.
The model is hybrid: students can study from anywhere and engage Paris’s intellectual ecosystem strategically, Station F for entrepreneurship, Paris School of Economics for research seminars, OECD and UNESCO for policy engagement, Collège de France for intellectual culture, without being confined to a single campus or required to relocate.
Assessment happens through public outputs, not exams. Students are required to publish 2–4 articles per year in recognized venues with editorial oversight, not blog posts, but actual publications in outlets like Medium with significant engagement, field-specific industry publications, or academic journals as students advance. They complete 2–3 consulting projects annually with real clients who provide structured feedback. They launch 1–2 businesses over the course of the degree that must generate documented revenue: €500 minimum for Bachelor-level, €2,000 for Master/PhD. Not business plans, actual ventures with paying customers.
Coursework integrates certificate-granting EdX courses from HarvardX, University of Michigan, ImperialX, and similar institutions. Students complete the same rigorous content as on-campus students at these universities and earn verifiable certificates. Assessment happens through Jury defenses, semester-end sessions where faculty evaluate whether students can apply course concepts to new scenarios, not whether they memorized material temporarily for exams.
At graduation, students have both an accredited degree and a portfolio: published articles with their names on them, consulting clients who provided testimonials, businesses they launched with documented revenue, and certificates from Harvard, Michigan, and other institutions validating their coursework.
Program cost is €8–11K per year, roughly one-third of comparable elite programs. Because the model is hybrid, students can maintain the local cost of living rather than financing expensive campus housing. Total cost for a Bachelor degree: €24–44K depending on completion timeline. Compare that to €30–50K per year at traditional elite universities.
The admissions process reflects the output-oriented philosophy: 48-hour decision timelines, three start dates per year (Fall semester starts October with May 31 deadline; Summer semester starts May with March 31 deadline; Winter semester starts February with November 30 deadline), and open enrollment for students who demonstrate ambition, diligence, and entrepreneurial mindset through skills assessment rather than credential screening.
This is not a pitch. It’s a description of how one institution responded to the same market dynamics every serious university must eventually address: credentials matter less, demonstrated capabilities matter more, and degree programs should be structured around building verifiable portfolios rather than accumulating course credits.
What Happens Next
Workforce analysts project that 2026 will mark the year skills-based hiring moves from pilot programs at innovative companies to standard policy at traditional employers (Korn Ferry, 2024). The early adopters proved the model works. The majority is following.
For young people deciding whether to invest in a traditional university, the question isn’t whether education matters…it does. The question is whether the diploma itself still functions as the access credential it was designed to be.
For parents evaluating education costs, the question isn’t whether to invest in their child’s capabilities; they should. The question is whether a four-year campus experience at €120,000+ is the most effective way to build those capabilities.
For educators, the question isn’t whether to maintain academic standards; they must. The question is whether examination-based assessment still measures what matters for professional success.
The opportunity is to organize the next four years around building a portfolio that the market can verify: published work, completed projects, launched ventures, and demonstrated competencies. The alternative is to bet that credential value will stabilize or reverse course.
That’s not ideology. It’s arithmetic.
For students evaluating degree options: PSE offers a decision framework comparing output-based and traditional degree models at parisschoolofentrepreneurship.com/framework
Applications: 48-hour decisions. Fall semester (October start) deadline: May 31. Summer semester (May start) deadline: March 31. Winter semester (February start) deadline is November 30.
Apply at parisschoolofentrepreneurship.com/onlineapplication or by email to contact@parisschoolofentrepreneurship.com
FAQ — Skills-Based Hiring & Degree Requirements
Short, practical answers to the questions students and parents ask most when degree requirements drop and hiring shifts to skills.
Is it true that many jobs no longer require a degree?
Yes. More employers are removing degree filters and replacing them with skills signals—portfolio evidence, certifications, and proof of execution.
Does this mean university is no longer worth it?
Not necessarily. Education still matters. What changed is that the diploma alone is a weaker signal—results and verifiable outputs increasingly determine employability.
What do employers use instead of degrees to assess candidates?
Evidence they can verify: shipped projects, writing samples, client work, measurable outcomes, certifications, and references linked to concrete performance.
How should students choose an education model in 2026?
Use an ROI lens: total cost, time-to-employability, credibility of proof (portfolio), and whether the program produces outputs the market can verify.
How does PSE respond to skills-based hiring?
PSE emphasizes output-based assessment: students build verifiable portfolios through published work, real projects, and venture execution—so they graduate with market-proof evidence.