“I think Generation Z definitely has a shifting mindset about how deserving or entitled we are to higher paying jobs without needing college.”

Corbin Johnson, 19, is a Milwaukee resident who attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the fall of 2022 with a major in art and a dear friend. He transferred to Milwaukee Area Technical College to pursue sound engineering, but later dropped out due to tuition costs and his opinion that he could teach himself what he would’ve been learning in school. He focused on his passion for photography and taught himself how to DJ, landing gigs at a few local businesses. Johnson believes that college isn’t for everyone, but it’s still valuable if you can afford to go and you know what you want to do.

Grace Santiago: I’m going to read you a statistic from the Wisconsin Policy Forum: “74% of the roughly 357,000 jobs projected to open each year in Wisconsin between 2020 and 2030 are occupations that typically did not require a college degree or credential as of 2020.”

How do you feel about most job openings in the next 10 years not requiring a college degree?

Corbin Johnson: As a non-college person, at least at the moment, it sounds OK to me. I don’t think it’s necessarily indicative of any kind of downfall of college. I think it’s just; you know, the waves come and go. I’d be curious to know how that number has increased or decreased over recent years, but I mean 74% is a high figure. My feeling, my immediate feeling is that the number makes sense though. I feel like most jobs don’t really require a college education like most getting in the dirt, physical labor type jobs. It’s just a job that most people can do. I wouldn’t be initially concerned by that figure unless I saw that that was a dramatic increase.

Q: Of the 357,000 jobs, only 26% or 95,000 will be jobs that pay higher than $50,000 a year. Of those 95,000 jobs only 36.1% or 34,000 of those higher paying jobs don’t require higher education. Based on the statistics I just read, how do you feel this will affect your choice to pursue higher education and/or how will it affect others around you?

A: Well, it doesn’t affect me at all. I’ve made my own decisions and I’m on my own path, but I can definitely imagine that affecting the people around me. How many say they don’t require higher education?

Grace Santiago: So, of these 95,000 jobs, 34,000 of those higher paying jobs don’t require higher education.

Corbin Johnson: Well, that makes sense to me. Again, I’d be curious how that figure has changed.

Q: Let me try to phrase it differently. Of these 357,000 jobs that are going to be opening, only 95,000 will be higher paying jobs. Do you feel like that proportionate to the number of students that are going to college in Wisconsin that want to get a higher paying job?

A: No, definitely not. First of all, $50,000 is hardly a living wage. But yeah, that’s a very disproportionate figure, 95,000. It does seem that as time goes on jobs tend to become less strict about requiring higher education. I guess it could make some think that higher education isn’t as necessary anymore, and I think there’s an augment for that. But I also think that you get a lot out of higher education than just skills you need for a job. You get a lot of social and thinking skills out of it too. It really depends on the kind of person and if college is meant for you, I think there’s more factors coming at you as a young person than just “what should I study to get ‘x’ job” you know?

Q: According to projections from the Wisconsin Policy Forum, roughly 6,700 higher paying jobs will open annually in Wisconsin. How does this number affect your view on getting a higher paying job?

A: That would make me feel pretty hopeful about it. I’d imagine a good amount of those are in construction or labor or perhaps Union based, but uh…

Q: What if I said for these 6,700 higher paying jobs that 70% of them will require a bachelor’s degree?

A: I don’t know. I mean, even as somebody that’s not in college, I think that still makes sense? I don’t know how much it makes sense given the specific jobs. I’m sure there’s a good number of those jobs that you could do without higher education, it just a professional thing to require that. I’m sure it really depends on the job but that is a lot of high paying jobs that open. Still a good chunk of them don’t require higher education. It doesn’t really concern me really, with the proportions of people that go to college versus those not going to college. It’s definitely harder to get a higher paying job without college, but then again college isn’t for everyone.

Q: I know that you’re not a student yourself, but tuition costs are increasing as higher paying jobs are becoming available and are requiring higher education status. How do you think this will affect the already declining enrollment rate across UW schools?

A: I just read that UW-Milwaukee’s Waukesha location is closing. I believe four other branches are closing fully or moving to a completely online platform. I just wonder how much of this is just consequences of the pandemic versus how much is this generation truly not thinking college is as worth it as it used to be. I think it’s a bit of both. I think generation Z definitely has a shifting mindset about how deserving or entitled we are to higher paying jobs without needing college. I think as we get further away from the pandemic, we’ll see enrollment go back up.