America’s colleges and universities are, with good reason, under attack for promoting an expensive postsecondary education “bundle” that is increasingly unmoored from the demands of the workforce. 

Bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Bennet and Rubio now aims to bust the accreditation cartel. But like the music and television industries, entrenched colleges and universities have, to date, fought the unbundling of a lucrative $500 billion revenue stream.

On their face, college degree requirements invariably fail the 20% deviation adverse impact test: 42.9% of whites ages 25-29 have bachelor’s degrees compared with just 22.7% of African-American and 18.7% of Hispanics. So one would think college degree requirements in job descriptions would be ripe for EEOC action. According to Associate Dean Charles Sullivan, an employment law expert at Seton Hall Law School, “Remarkably, the answer is almost never. No one is interested in upsetting this apple cart.”

When an enterprising lawyer – or state’s attorney general – finally decides to bring such a case, employers will attempt to show that the ratios of new hires to applicants don’t diverge by more than 20% for any group. That’s true, but only because college degree requirements keep candidates without degrees from applying to good jobs. Proving adverse impact of college degree requirements will require the demonstration that employment policies actually keep qualified candidates from applying. According to Sullivan, “such a case will require experts to prove the statistical case. But it can be done.”

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