Kenny Nguyen is the CEO and co-founder of ThreeSixtyEight, an award-winning marketing and innovation agency. He may be reached at kenny.n@threesixtyeight.com.
The best career advice I ever got was to drop out of college. But I certainly didn’t expect that advice to come from someone who worked for the university I attended.
As an undergraduate at LSU, I founded a company that helped people give better public presentations. We did so well, so quickly that my grades started to slip, and I was at risk of being expelled. It was an advisor at LSU who encouraged me to follow my passion and build on the success of my startup — even if that meant leaving college without earning my degree.
I’m grateful — and lucky — that my story has a happy ending. Today, I’m a successful entrepreneur who leads a creative agency in Baton Rouge with employees across multiple states, leads a nonprofit, and invests in restaurants. I just happen not to have a college degree. But far too many other Louisiana residents have backgrounds similar to mine, only their stories aren’t nearly as happy.
According to the nonprofit Opportunity@Work, 1.1 million workers across the state — 60% of our total workforce — are STARs: Skilled Through Alternative Routes, rather than through a bachelor’s degree. These STARs have gained skills and experience not from bachelor’s degree programs but from on-the-job training, the military, community college and other pathways. The majority of them (54%, according to Opportunity@Work’s statewide data) have transferable skills sought after by much higher-paying occupations.
But most STARs will never get the opportunity to succeed in those roles. In fact, most of them wouldn’t get a second look if they even applied for those roles — simply because they don’t have the right piece of paper.
Estimates suggest that the majority of jobs in Louisiana require a four-year degree. At the same time, we rank close to the bottom of the country in education attainment. Barely 30% of residents have earned an associate’s degree or higher. For decades, we’ve argued that the only solution is to help more Louisianans go to college.
There’s no doubt that college can be a powerful pathway to economic opportunity. But it shouldn’t be the only pathway — particularly for the thousands of workers who already have the skills to succeed in higher-earning, family-sustaining jobs.
If we want to tap into the abundant potential that exists throughout Louisiana, employers and policymakers need to tear the paper ceiling. That means removing the degree requirement for jobs that don’t really need it and embracing the potential of the many STARs who are too often stuck in low-wage jobs.
Leaders throughout Louisiana can follow the example of a growing number of governors — in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Utah and elsewhere — who are supporting STARs by removing degree requirements from most or all of their public sector jobs. And it’s not just state governments: private companies such as IBM, Accenture and Bank of America are popping the balloon of chronic degree inflation by dropping degree requirements for entry-level and even some middle-tier jobs. Between 2017 and 2019, according to a 2022 study of 51 million job postings, companies across the country relaxed degree requirements for a substantial number of jobs at varying skill levels. Over the next five years, the study’s authors say that 1.4 million jobs could open up to STARs.
Louisiana businesses can do what I have done: hire, recruit, and train talented and motivated people rather than screening them out because they learned their skills outside of the traditional college experience. Stories like that of my own colleague Justin — who has lent his story to Opportunity@Work’s national campaign to tear the paper ceiling — are proof of the amazing things STARs can do if we just give them the chance to succeed.
This isn’t just the right thing to do: It’s the smart thing. With unemployment in Louisiana at historic lows, every business knows how hard it is to find talent today. Louisiana is so often the last state to innovate. Why not let this be an opportunity for us to lead?
It also isn’t about casting college as the enemy. Far from it. A four-year degree can be a ticket to the middle class, as it was for so many of my classmates at LSU.
The point is that there should be multiple paths to the middle class, and millions of Louisianans have the skills and talent to be there. Let’s start by recognizing the potential of 1.1 million Louisianans who have the skills businesses are looking for, then begin building a labor market that works for everyone.
To learn more and sign the pledge, visit tearthepaperceiling.org. Our work to build a stronger and more equitable labor market in Louisiana starts now.
