(Newswire.net — December 3, 2019) —
New York – A large number of students believe that obtaining a college diploma and going into large debt for student loans is the only way to get a job at leading companies in the world global market such as Apple, Google and Netflix.
This, however, is not always true, the US business magazine Business Insider reports.
Prominent Business Leaders, Siemens America CEO Barbara Hampton and Apple CEO Tim Cook are examining the actual need for a college degree.
Cook recently said that about half of Apple’s employees don’t have a college degree. He concluded that many colleges do not teach the skills required in the current job market, such as coding.
Hampton rejected the idea that a four-year college degree guarantees career readiness. “And so to that end, as we’ve looked at the — sort of, the mismatch between the skills that are coming out of colleges and what the skills are that we believe we need in the future, and many other businesses do, we’ve identified coding as a very key one,” Cook said during the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting on Wednesday.
Reputable companies like Google and Apple employ workers who have the skills needed to do the job, with or without a degree. LinkedIn has found that many of today’s largest companies do not require employees to have a college degree.
Upon further analysis of the data, LinkedIn identified specific positions that are more likely to be filled by employees without a degree, including electrical engineers, mechanical designers, and marketing representatives.
But regardless, at least for now, college degrees seem to be paying off. Workers with basic studies earn $932 a week more than the average worker, according to a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Since studying often requires taking out a loan, many Americans cannot afford college degrees. Only 42 percent of high school students go on to graduate for a two- or four-year degree, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Many expect automation to replace a quarter of the current workforce. Experts and researchers are looking for alternatives to prepare young workers for new jobs.
Apple CEO Tim Cook recalled that their company was founded by a man who was a college dropout, which prompted the company’s policy that no degree is required to be successful.
“So we’ve never really thought that a college degree was the thing that you had to do well,” said Cook, adding that expanding horizons is what the company needs.