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Skilled through alternative routes (STAR) is a term to describe adults in the United States without bachelor's degrees who have work experience and skills that position them for transitions to higher-wage jobs. First identified in a 2020 research paper in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), STARs made up approximately 70 million workers in the U.S. economy as of 2021.

Description

The majority of American workers (approximately 64% as of 2020) do not have a four-year bachelor's degree, including 68 percent of Black workers and 79 percent of Hispanic workers.

STARs have gained skills through a variety of routes other than the four-year college degree, often including community college, workforce training, bootcamps, certificate programs, military service or on-the-job learning. Research from December 2020 indicates that 30 million STARs have the skills to earn 70 percent more than their current wages. However, 60 percent of STARs who changed jobs over the past decade transitioned to new positions with the same or lower wages than their previous position.

Proponents of supporting STARs argue that a more intentional approach to hiring, training, and recruiting STARs can help to increase the representation of non-white individuals in the workforce.

References

1. Blair, Peter Q. (2021-07-01). "Skills, Degrees and Labor Market Inequality". National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
2. Blair, Peter Q. (2021-04-01). "Searching for STARs: Work Experience as a Job Market Signal for Workers without Bachelor's Degrees". National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved 2021-04-01.
3. Auguste, Byron (2021-07-20). "The majority of Americans lack a college degree. Why do so many employers require one?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
4. Census, U.S. (2020-03-20). "U.S. Census Bureau Releases New Educational Attainment Data". U.S. Census. Retrieved 2021-04-01.
5. Blair, Peter Q. (2021-06-28). "The Disparate Racial Impact of Requiring a College Degree". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2021-04-01.
6. "STARs: Skilled Through Alternative Routes". Opportunity@Work. 2021-04-01. Retrieved 2021-04-01.
7. Lohr, Steve (2020-12-03). "Up to 30 Million in U.S. Have the Skills to Earn 70% More, Researchers Say". The New York Times. Retrieved 2021-04-01.
8. Fain, Paul (2020-12-04). "Job Transitions for Skilled Workers Without Degrees". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 2021-04-01.
9. Baskin, Kara (2021-03-24). "5 ways to close the tech industry's race gap through education". MIT Sloan. Retrieved 2021-04-01.
10. Chopra, Karan (2020-07-19). "We shouldn't chase economic recovery; we should chase economic redesign". Fortune. Retrieved 2021-04-01.

Further reading

• Casey, Marcus; Maciolek, Ashleigh (2020-12-21). "Opportunity, policy, and the future of automation". Brookings. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
• Lewis, LaShana M.; Equity, director of the St. Louis (2021-01-09). "Op-ed: I broke barriers as Black woman in tech without a degree. Hire more workers like me". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
• deLaski, Kathleen; Bing, Eric (2020-04-14). "Retraining Workers Is the Key to Solving Job Needs". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
• Blumenstyk, Goldie (2020-06-03). "The Edge: The Equity Argument - and a New Tool - for Skills-Based Hiring". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2021-09-09.

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