Tearing the Paper Ceiling: The Impact of State Commitments to Remove Degree Requirements on Public Awareness and Job Opportunities for STARs

In the past two years, 25 states have enacted executive orders and legislation to reduce unnecessary degree requirements for public sector jobs, signaling a shift toward skill-based hiring. This paper examines the impact of these policy commitments on public perceptions, media coverage, and job posting practices in the time following their adoption. Our analysis reveals significant increases in public awareness of skill-based hiring concepts, such as the 'paper ceiling' (i.e., bachelor’s degree analog of the glass ceiling), and a notable decline in bachelor’s degree requirements in state government job postings. We estimate that degree requirements dropped by 2.5 percentage points for each additional year of policy exposure in states with commitments. These findings suggest that state policy commitments have expanded access to government jobs for workers skilled through alternative routes (STARs) other than the bachelor’s degree in keeping with the intended goals of the policies to broaden the talent pool for public sector hiring.