The Workplace and the Education Game

Let me be blunt. Now that more African Americans and Hispanic/Latinos are receiving college degrees than ever before, a Bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma and a Master’s Degree is the new Bachelor’s Degree. On top of that, a Bachelor’s Degree—and not a high school diploma or “some college”—has also become the new baseline for hiring at most companies. Sorry, but this is what happens when minorities start to make inroads that can level the playing field. With each passing year, more and more Black and Hispanic/Latino job candidates possess a degree, making them competitive with the White field of prospective employees.

Some White employers enjoyed having the lack of education “tool” as a fall-back resource on the job because it served as a so-called legitimate barometer of who got paid what, who got which assignment, who got great opportunities at work, who was promoted, etc.

Years ago, the argument was that hands-on experience was more valuable than or equally as valuable as a formal education because many companies often had too many employees with degrees, who couldn’t do the actual work. So, they would have staff, without a college education or with a lesser college degree, actually training the so-called intellectuals on the job. I’m sure some of you have been there at some point in your career, underpaid and undervalued, but training senior staff or higher paid staff to do some part of their job.

Non-degreed staff didn’t get the biggest salary or the fancy title, but at the right company, they could still have a very competitive salary and great work opportunities along with their degreed counterparts.

Today, things are flipped and the dividing line between the haves and have-nots, in the workplace, is coming down on the side of education versus real world experience. It’s odd because many employers, today, are complaining about the often poor pool of college graduates. I’ve read reports about many of today’s college grads being unable to type and having poor written language skills. But, those same graduates will often still get the job over a prospective employee with 5 or more years of real and relevant job experience. That’s because the recent grad is often going to be paid a whole lot less than even a non-degreed staff person that was doing the job for many years.

As result of more minorities receiving a higher education, the sliding scale of educational requirements is not doing as much to create disparities as it once did. So, when education isn’t the divider it used to be, it’s harder to justify disparities in the workplace and a racist supervisor or company is going to have to resort to other options to engage in preferential treatment of staff based on race.

If you’ve got a Bachelor’s Degree, you may want to consider getting that Master’s Degree because that’s where the game is right now. It really isn’t about the pursuit of education. It’s about keeping the haves as the haves and the have-nots as the have-nots.

I strongly recommend that you track your continuing education, including any training classes or certificate programs you’ve participated in. Keep a log highlighting any education and training that is particularly relevant to your field and is specifically related to your job responsibilities.

If your job offers tuition reimbursement, figure out what skills you’d like to add to keep yourself competitive in your profession.

When performance evaluation time comes around, provide your reviewer/supervisor with a list of all of your new educational achievements. Make sure you get credit for improving your knowledge base and ask for additional responsibilities to reward you for increasing your competence in your field.