One unfortunate aspect of the discourse around artificial intelligence right now is the perception among millions of working Americans, planted and fed by too many tech company leaders, that AI will destroy most jobs. 

Certainly, AI will displace many jobs over the coming years, much like the internet, personal computing, robotics, and other technologies. AI will change many jobs, as it has already changed my job as a teacher. AI will also create (and is already creating) some jobs. 

Using AI to Remove Barriers to Public Employment

Not enough attention has been paid to how AI can enable job opportunities. For example, state governments employ millions of Americans. Many state jobs require college degrees, even when a worker without a college degree could be equally productive in that job. 

By using AI to identify and remove unnecessary college degree requirements, states can break down barriers to more equitable employment

By using AI to identify and remove unnecessary college degree requirements, states can break down barriers to more equitable employment, fill their jobs more quickly, and create opportunities to find good-quality jobs for more of their residents. Perhaps most importantly, state governments can set an example for the private-sector employers in their states.

Yes, a college education is valuable. I am a university professor, so of course, I believe that to be true. Yet, college does not teach you everything needed for every job.  Also, college is not the only place where workers can learn. Many workers without college degrees have substantial skills and knowledge acquired through non-degree credential programs, apprenticeships, and other work-based learning approaches, as well as work experience, a high school education, or even some college courses that do not lead to a degree. 

 Unnecessary college degree requirements reinforce racial and class disparities in college attainment and slow down the process of filling state jobs.

The sad truth is that unnecessary college degree requirements reinforce racial and class disparities in college attainment. States should work to close those disparities by better understanding their own hiring practices and the skills and knowledge of workers without college degrees.

Shifting to Skills-Based Hiring

The Burnes Center for Social Change, with a recently announced second round of generous support from the Gitlab Foundation, is working to help states expand the universe of workers they will consider for state jobs by eliminating unnecessary college degree requirements. Artificial intelligence is at the center of the effort.

The Burnes Center developed four project components that were tested in a pilot partnership with New Jersey’s Civil Service Commission. Using Policy Synth, an agentic AI tool developed by our colleague Robert Bjarnason, the Burnes Center project offers four services to state partners:

• Cataloguing Degree Requirements: Identification of all the college degree requirements in states’ existing job descriptions.

• Making Job Descriptions Accessible: “Readability” assessments of job descriptions and rewriting job descriptions to a reading level that allows full comprehension by workers without college degrees.

• Finding Legal Mandates (Part 1): Assessment of whether (a) occupational licensing laws increase the number of job descriptions that require college degrees, and (b) occupational licensing laws do not require college degrees when job descriptions include both a license and a degree requirement.

• Finding Legal Mandates (Part 2): Assessment of whether other laws (i.e., not occupational licensing laws) mandate the college degree requirements we have found.

With this information and analysis, states will know exactly which of their jobs have college degree requirements and which requirements are discretionary (i.e., not legally mandated). Discretionary requirements can be changed fairly easily without a substantial legal process. 

Just because a degree requirement is discretionary does not mean it is unnecessary. That’s a judgment for the states to make.

AI applications can be powerful research tools for sorting through sizable databases of job descriptions, laws, regulations, and judicial decisions. 

The pilot project convincingly showed that properly deployed and carefully evaluated AI applications can be powerful research tools for sorting through large databases of job descriptions, laws, regulations, and judicial decisions. Policy Synth captured information that should drive states’ hiring decisions. 

We plan to automate all our processes so that states can provide themselves with each of the four services listed above 

The next research phase of the Burnes Center project will be to further test and refine these four components and, most importantly, to scale the project so that every interested state can participate. Simply, we plan to automate all our processes so that states can provide themselves with each of the four services listed above without the Burnes Center’s involvement.

Ultimately, states and other employers owning this process will be the only way to eliminate vast swaths of unnecessary college degree requirements and to provide for more equitable employment opportunities for workers of all kinds. 

The Burnes Center and its partners at the Gitlab Foundation are working to make that outcome more likely.