Could be both.
I’m thinking it’s to hire the people coming illegally over the border.
Online resources like KhanAcademy.org can help train people in math skills much more quickly, more effectively, and less expensively than colleges anyway.
If a company wants some of its people to have degrees in certain applicable subjects, it can send them to night school (even online).
This is a great model that has been a long time coming.
It could also be a recognition that being smart with experience means more than a degree, especially for non-entry jobs.
In my experience it is not uncommon in development or operations where all of the top performers either have a Master’s degree or no degree, and all of the bottom performers have Bachelors degrees (or Master’s).
With what the BS the colleges teach the kids a bachelor degree would be on a par with a criminal record. Now a trade school grad is a different matter
With no Batchelors, they can pay such people less while stating those with such degrees are “over qualified so they don’t have to hire them. May favor more guys without degrees than women with such degrees.
From my experience in working in HR for 35 years for a manufacturing company, both at the plant level and in corporate, I think it's a smart move.
At the plant level, the only degrees that should be required are in engineering or in accounting. All the other office jobs in the plant can be learned on the job.
As for shop supervisors and department managers, the best supervisors and managers were promoted from the hourly work force who knew how the various stamping and assembly lines should be run.
The same especially for the skilled trades.
As for my job, I was never promoted due to not having the required degree but my job was task specific, and there is no college educated individual that could do it without spending at least a year working with me.
I administered our UAW pension plan for all the hourly employees and had to work with the pension contracts that spanned over 50 years of constantly changing agreements and the contract bible containing them all.
After 25 years in the plant, corporate consolidated the pension departs from our Philadelphia plant and Detroit plant and brought them to corporate.
During my last 10 years there, I worked for three different managers who had Masters degrees and knew absolutely nothing about what I was doing and constantly coming to me with questions.
There are jobs that require college degrees but anything beyond that is just a waste of time.
Having a masters degree doesn't make you a smart manager.......
I think this is a good thing. . I also think NOT attending college these days shows the level of intelligent of the new generation of candidates. My college degree meant nothing. It did not help me in any of the jobs I got after college.
Paying less, is the reason.
It is probably so they can find workers. Many jobs that once did not require a bachelor’s degree now do. This move seems to be a change for the better. Especially if more high schools bring back courses of study aimed at being able to get a job after being graduated. Programs like beginning business or medical assistant or heck just plain old secretary.