Sivaram V/Reuters
Getting a four-year degree isn't the only way to get your foot in the door at top companies like Apple.
- Many of the nation's most popular companies to work for don't require a college degree, and certain jobs are more likely to be filled with non-college graduates than others, LinkedIn found.
- Top business executives have begun questioning whether college degrees really prepare workers for
careers , while some are starting to hire more and more non-college graduates. - Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.
Students assume getting a four-year degree - and taking on the thousands of student loan debt that comes along with it - is the only way to get your foot in the door at top companies like Apple, Google, and Netflix.
But that isn't always true.
Prominent business leaders like Siemens USA CEO Barbara Humpton and Apple CEO Tim Cook are already questioning the need for four-year degrees altogether. Cook recently revealed that about half of Apple's US employment last year included people who did not have a four-year degree. Cook reasoned many colleges do not teach the skills business leaders need most in their workforce, such as coding.
Read more: The 40 highest-paying jobs you can get without a bachelor's degree
Humpton, too, dismissed the idea that a four-year degree guarantees career-readiness: "All too often, job requisitions will say they require a four-year degree, when in fact there's nothing about the job that truly requires a four-year degree - it merely helped our hiring managers sort of weed through the crowd and get a smaller qualified candidate group," Humpton recently said at the White House during the first American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting.
Now, prominent companies like Google and Apple are hiring employees who have the skills required to get jobs done, with or without a degree. LinkedIn found many of today's hottest companies to work for do not require employees have a college degree. After further analysis of the data, LinkedIn identified specific positions more likely to be filled by non-college graduates, including electronic technicians, mechanical designers, and marketing representatives.
That being said, college degrees seem to pay off. Workers that hold at least a bachelor's degree earned more than the $932 median weekly earnings for all workers in 2018, according to a recent report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Yet, since degrees often require taking on student debt, many Americans cannot afford college degrees. Only 42% of high school sophomores go on to earn a two-year or four-year degree, according to the US Department of Education. Even among students who graduate from college, a significant number of new graduates are underemployed, meaning they work jobs that don't require a college degree.
As many expect automation to displace a quarter of the workforce, experts and researchers are already tossing around alternatives to help prepare young employees for work. For instance, Business Insider reporter Rich Feloni wrote about a recent report that suggests apprenticeships programs, which mix school and on-the-job training, could better prepare the workforce of the future.
"Our company, as you know, was founded by a college drop-out," Cook said at the White House panel. "So we've never really thought that a college degree was the thing that you had to have to do well. We've always tried to expand our horizons."