大学对薪酬报告的影响

IntroductionMany organizations pay higher salaries to employees with collegedegrees. Most compensation philosophies outline legitimate reasonsfor paying employees differently, and education has been historicallyaccepted as a compensable factor for explaining pay differentiation.However, it is disputed as to whether paying a graduate premium continues to be a bestpractice today. Recently, questions have been raised as to whether degree requirementsunnecessarily limit talent pools or create inequity through implicit or explicit bias.There are several potential problems:First,so many people earn degrees today that the market is glutted with collegegraduates, many of whom are underemployed with jobs unrelated to their degrees.Second,with the advent of the internet, there are many alternative routes to learningthat were not available historically and are more tailored to job requirements.Third,since not everyone has equal access to a college education, paying graduatepremiums can perpetuate systemic inequities in opposition to DEI programs.Finally,pay transparency laws are accelerating the need for clarity when it comes topublishing pay ranges for positions, inclusive of compensable factors. For compensation professionals, the question becomes:“Is it fair to pay graduate premiums in the present era?”To answer this question, organizations need to bring a morediscerning lens to job evaluation and really consider whethera degree is a valid requirement, is merely preferred, or makesno difference (or even hampers success in the role) — and ifthe accumulation of skills and experience can substitute for aformal education. This effort coincides with a shift toward askills-based approach to talent management, which involvesdefining the required skills for every job along with proficiencylevels and associated value.While this can be daunting, compensation technologyand salary data inclusive of education and skills can helporganizations get started by providing the tools they need toconfidently price jobs with full transparency on the impact ofcompensable factors applied. A college degree is acompetitive advantageIn an ideal world, job proficiency would be what primarily determines pay andwould be easy to measure. However, the reality is that measuring advancingskill, attributes, and knowledge is not easy. A college degree is one of the waysin which organizations measure proficiency. Even when a degree is not tied toa specific job function, graduating from college communicates an aptitude forindependent learning and accumulation of general knowledge — a distinctionvalued by employers.A college degree is thus a competitive differentiator for job candidates, resultingin college-educated people landing better jobs, making higher salaries earlierin their careers, and excelling faster than non-college graduates. The betterthe college, the more attractive the graduate, as colleges are competitive andprovide employers with a sense of a candidate’s merit. College degrees continueto be especially relevant in highly technical careers.This is largely borne out by the market, as evidenced by Payscale research onCollege ROI.In addition, according toPayscale’s 2024 Compensation Best PracticesReport, a sizeable number of organizations pay higher salaries to collegegraduates, which increases with org size. Paying higher salaries for educationis alsoaligned with top performers: organizations that exceeded their revenuegoals in the previous year. At a high level, the table here shows abreakout by industry for whether andhow organizations compensate foreducation, regardless of skills and yearsof experience. Government organizationsvalue a four-year bachelor’s degree themost, followed by orgs in Construction,Manufacturing, and Energy & Utilities.Industrydifferencesfor graduatepremiums A college degree may bepreferred but not requiredWhile a college degree can communicate aptitude and proficiency,organizations do not need to limit applicants for a job to only degree-holdingcandidates — especially for roles requiring skills that can be learned outsideof a formal education — as that could mean passing up on some extraordinarytalent. This is doubly true for organizations willing to provide education andtraining, especially for roles where there are labor shortages.According toPayscale’s 2024 Compensation Best Practices Report, 34percent of organizations have removed degree requirements to consider allapplicants with the necessary skills and experience. Another 41 percent saythat it depends on the role, as some jobs still require a formal education. Whilenot a majority, this is higher than the 22 percent of organizations that requiredegrees for all salaried positions — a sign that times are changing to reflect abroader spectrum of knowledge workers.In other words, lacking a college degree shouldn’t preclude anyone fromconsideration for a position that doesn’t require it, as many salaried positionstoday do not.However, it is a best practice to