How did labor market trends influence additions or removals of professional degrees in 2025–2026?
Executive summary
Labor market pressures in 2025–2026 produced a paradox: employers and hiring-data firms documented a renewed appetite for formal degrees in many job postings even as the broader narrative and some employers doubled down on skills-first hiring and nondegree credentials [1] [2] [3]. Policy changes, sectoral labor shortages (notably in healthcare), and tightening entry-level markets pushed institutions and regulators to reclassify or shrink some professional-degree pathways while demand for certificates and employer-run bootcamps rose [4] [5] [6].
1. Degree requirements crept back into postings as labor tightened
Indeed’s analysis shows the share of job postings requiring a bachelor’s degree bottomed in March 2024 and then trended upward through late 2025, with the adjusted series indicating genuine increases in formal higher-education requirements rather than just occupational mix shifts [1]. That signal — modest but persistent — was echoed by employer reporting that hiring for new graduates remained flat to only slightly up, which made employers more selective and, in some cases, more likely to use degrees as screening tools amid constrained pools of experienced hires [2] [7].
2. Entry-level weakness and changing returns altered demand for graduate professional programs
Multiple labor-market analyses documented that recent college graduates faced weaker outcomes in 2024–2025, with UNEMPLOYMENT and job-finding rates signaling tougher entry markets for young degree-holders — a reality that fed both student and institutional recalibration about the value of additional professional degrees [8] [9]. Employers reported hiring fewer entry-level workers and faced shifting talent pipelines, which reduced the immediate payoff of some graduate professional credentials and contributed to program consolidations or enrollment declines in select fields [5].
3. Policy and financial changes reshaped which professional degrees survived
Policy moves in late 2025 and early 2026 affected the supply side: elimination of Grad PLUS loans and new, narrower definitions for “professional degree” altered financing for many graduate programs and prompted institutions to rethink which professional degrees to expand, suspend, or repackage as certificate pathways or employer partnerships [4]. Tyton Partners specifically predicted that removing certain federal borrowing options would depress enrollment in some healthcare graduate programs and trigger new institution-employer collaborations to shore up workforce pipelines [4].
4. Skills-first momentum pulled in the opposite direction — especially outside regulated professions
Several industry observers and recruiters argued that skills-based hiring accelerated in 2025, with employers increasingly using competency assessments, bootcamps, and on-the-job training as alternatives to formal credentials; Forbes and ZipRecruiter framed this as a growing norm that weakens the relative weight of traditional degrees except where licensure or technical standards require them [6] [3]. NACE data showed rising employer adoption of skill-based hiring (70% using it among respondents), reinforcing that many organizations are actively recruiting beyond degree boxes even as some postings reinsert degree requirements [2].
5. Sectoral differences explain additions versus removals of professional degrees
The tug-of-war between degrees and skills was not uniform: regulated and shortage-plagued sectors such as healthcare tended to preserve or even expand professional-degree pipelines (though financing and enrollment pressures forced program rethinking), while tech and more commodified corporate roles saw growth in certificates, internal bootcamps, and other nondegree credentials [5] [3] [4]. Indeed’s state-by-state posting differences also show geography and local labor markets matter — higher degree-requirement shares persisted in some metros while others leaned toward skills signals [1].
6. What reporting does not show (and therefore cannot be claimed)
Available sources document shifts in posting requirements, employer preferences, student outcomes, and policy changes, but they do not provide a comprehensive, itemized list of specific professional degrees that were formally added or removed from accreditation catalogs in 2025–2026; direct evidence of program-level additions/removals across all institutions is not present in these reports, and such granular confirmations would require institutional or accreditor records not included here [1] [4].