George Leef’s latest Forbes column draws attention to one box that ought to be banned.
Of late, the Obama administration has been applying pressure to ban the criminal record box – that is, to keep employers from asking if an applicant has ever been convicted. That is supposed to open up more job opportunities for people who have criminal records.
It could, but then it could also have harmful consequences if people with past criminal records and current criminal intent are put in jobs where they can commit more crimes. (Another objection is that the federal government has no constitutional authority to dictate hiring policies, but let’s put that aside.)
There is another hiring policy involving a box that is equally damaging to people who are trying to find employment, namely the way many employers now decline to consider applicants unless they have a college degree. Even if they have the knowledge needed to do the work or are just as trainable as a college graduate, the degree box keeps many who don’t have one from a chance at jobs other than the most menial.
Things weren’t always this way in the U.S. Earlier in our history, employers rarely concerned themselves with educational credentials. Only a very few jobs were foreclosed to people who didn’t have the right degrees. That changed rapidly starting about 40 years ago. …
… Quite a few people see that “credential inflation” is a serious problem.
One of them is law professor and long-time critic of America’s college mania, Glenn Harlan Reynolds. In his June 6 USA Today column, Reynolds advocates “banning the college box.” That is, prevent employers from asking job applicants if they have a college degree, just as regulations in some cases ban them from asking applicants if they have a criminal record.
Reynolds writes, “College is sold as a source of social mobility because getting an education improves your chance of getting a job. But there’s another way of looking at things: College isn’t so much a source of mobility as the lack of college is a barrier to moving up, a barrier that disproportionately affects the poor.”