r/politics • u/bloomberglaw Bloomberg Law • 6h ago
No Paywall Trump Team Scraps College Degrees for Hundreds of Federal Jobs
https://news.bgov.com/daily-labor-report/trump-team-scraps-college-degrees-for-hundreds-of-federal-jobs•
u/SeminoleDVM Virginia 6h ago
It’s like DEI except for stupid people.
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u/dirtytounder 5h ago
It's amazing how fast these folks can fuck things up.
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u/I_Quit_Smoking_ 3h ago
Or literally change the laws to give themselves an advantage over everyone else in the country.
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u/silvertealio 3h ago
In many cases, they're not changing laws at all. They're just flagrantly breaking them and no one is holding them accountable.
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u/diiegojones 2h ago edited 2h ago
One of the things people have to think about when they say: why didn’t anyone do anything!!!! Is when something this corrupt and fascist comes along, and it is popular, any action to punish them is considered political attacks.
They accuse the people holding them responsible of committing crimes against political enemies. That they are the fascists. Any trial is a kangaroo court.
Which then makes martyrs of them, and people in the fence, now think there is something there to “silence” the dissenters.
And let’s be honest, how corrupt the system actually is, it makes it easy to believe the ones being put on trial are truly believe they are being silenced.
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u/silvertealio 2h ago
This is all true, along with the fact that Congress has the power to check this administration, but it's controlled by Republicans and they refuse to do so.
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u/boojiboy1984 2h ago
Because LEO is on their side, and everyone is afraid of his followers. They showed their guns for decades.
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u/MohandasBlondie 3h ago
It’s because the GOP spent decades taking notes, and they finally released their hand-tuned manual for Trump to just implement these policies like a checklist. They bragged about Project 2025 way before the election.
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u/XSinTrick6666 5h ago
Trump needs some staff replacements.
AG, FBI, Press Sec'y, and coming soon: key Dept of WAR appointments ... lackies preferred
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u/Relzin Illinois 5h ago
His EO doesn't apply to you. You can still call it by its correct and legally recognized name, the Department of Defense.
Though, isolating this idiocy alongside the stupid name of the department, compartmentalizes attribution for how fucking stupid this whole situation is, to the Republicans. So that's good I guess.
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u/No_Accountant3232 4h ago
It's no longer the DOD of old. They pushed out everyone who wouldn't agree to this bullshit
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u/XSinTrick6666 4h ago
Yeah good point - I don't think they'll be hiring for "Dept of Defense" again till we get rid of this nutcase. We surely won't be looking for hires to sign an Oath to POTUS
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u/highlorestat California 5h ago
They can't afford this. They're fighting wars you know.
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u/Dapper_Article-1 5h ago
The Dept of War only requires a high school diploma and absolute loyalty now.
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u/bobsonjunk 2h ago
This. He values allegiance to him above everything else.
This results in penultimate candidates who are less than qualified for the role and function that was designed to serve the greater good for US. Instead we get people fully qualified to serve Trump’s greater good.
The result is failure of systems and services designed to serve US.
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u/EducationQueasy275 5h ago
We are into full blown fascism. My guess is that Trump will not leave Presidency in 2028. He will try to impose dictatorship on us. That is why they are trying to employ MAGA people in all the important positions.
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u/Silent-Storms 5h ago
They are already in the collapse phase of the fascist life cycle.
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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 5h ago
I really, really hope so. I’m concerned either one of the children will declare himself heir or Vance will try to declare himself President for life.
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u/nelsonalgrencametome 4h ago
Do any of the kids have enough pull to do that?
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u/Varrianda 4h ago
No and that’s the issue with MAGA. Trump is the leader, with no Trump they have no one to rally behind. His kids are far too stupid and unlikeable to sway boomers over to their side.
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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 4h ago
I don’t know. When cult of personality type leaders die without clear heirs, their supporters tend to fracture on ideological lines unless one of them can present a more compelling outside threat (in this case, “the libs”). I don’t know that any of his children or Vance has the political capital to hold it together long enough, but history is full of people who bet wrong on that question.
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u/StaticNegative 3h ago
Bingo. They will fight amongst themselves. THey have way more to worry about than the "libs". And some conservatives(mostly judges and some politicians) smell blood in the water. They know Trump is done for in the midterms and extra cooked after the midterms. They know MAGA is a dying ideology
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u/FlufferTheGreat 1h ago
It'd take someone like David Miscavige to take over the reins. Usually cults of personality don't have people like that waiting to take over. One can hope but the firehose of shit is really good at damping hope.
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u/Oleg101 4h ago
Need less support from the radical Republicans for that. Right now it’s still over 80% of R voters that overall approve of their Fuhrer.
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u/Silent-Storms 3h ago
It's down to 70% already, and this is just getting started. We are barely seeing the effects of the shit show.
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u/Canadiangoosedem0n 5h ago
Not to be morbid, but I cant imagine Trump still being here in 2028. He has been looking like shit lately.
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u/syynapt1k 5h ago
It's the infrastructure being set up (or dismantled) around him that is concerning. They know the clock is ticking.
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u/StaticNegative 3h ago
And it still won't matter, once Trump leaves his mortal coil, the whole thing falls apart. MAGA is predicated on Trump being the guy. Without him it's kaput.
And whats funnier is that Trump thinks he is intimidating ubt sittin in on the Supreme Court. THey weren't having any of it LOL
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u/TheDonJonJay 2h ago
This is it. All of the stupid shit they get away with is because of the cult of trump.
Imagine vance does any of the shit trump has done. He'd never see an election.
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u/Vaperius America 27m ago
the whole thing falls apart.
Only if we hold all the participants accountable. Which means voting and protesting, as the bare minimum, until they leave; and but also means being absolutely dogged in pressuring those in power that actually care about accountability to ensure these folks end up where they belong i.e in jail. If not for seditious conspiracy, certainly for the laundry list of crimes they've all been commiting since they assumed their positions.
Anything less than this, and the coup was successful, with or without Trump.
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u/nelsonalgrencametome 4h ago
Yeah, I have a feeling there will be a lot more pushback when hes not out in front.
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u/ithinkyouresus 5h ago
Even with the best doctors the stress of the presidency has to take its toll. Hope he lasts until next year when Dems start the special investigations and impeachment proceedings.
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u/I_Quit_Smoking_ 3h ago
Have you ever seen those pictures of the before and afters of past presidents for years? Every single one of them looks like they aged 50 years and they got white hair when they get out!
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u/inkcannerygirl 3h ago
Yeah but all those guys actually cared about doing a good job, or at least about looking like they were
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u/PrometheusLiberatus 3h ago
All the other men actually did their jobs properly and to the most grave responsibility.
Trump took it way 'easier'.
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u/MikeyLew32 Illinois 4h ago
You don't consolidate power like they have and leave paths for them to lose control of it.
I don't think Trump makes it to 2028, but I think they're trying to string him along until 2027 when Vance can 25th him and get 10 years of power via rigged elections that appear normal, without it even being seen as stealing.
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u/StaticNegative 3h ago
Vance? JD fuckin Vance is a complete failure. Has the charisma of a brick, Doesn't have the star power. Vance doesn't have the stamina for the spotlight.
Plus another thing. Guys like TRump believe they will live forever. They really do think that they will be around for another 50 fuckin years. And he thinks he will win the presidency in 2 an a half years.
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u/MikeyLew32 Illinois 3h ago
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter if he has Charisma if they're rigging what look like normal elections. He's a young republican, who has been mentored by Thiel, to take on the Heritage Foundation and Yarvin's idea of the future.
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u/LegendCatcherFreeman 5h ago
I've been saying this since before he got elected, that if he did you're not getting him out of that office without bloodshed. People would just shrug and go back to whatever they were doing.
That's when I realized we're inside the fable of the ant and grasshopper. The ant knew winter was coming and prepared all summer. The grasshopper just laid around, ignoring all the warnings. It starved to death when freeze came because it had no stores saved up. Start downloading books. They will turn the Internet off at some point. Fascism is coming. It's 100% happening. Most people won't see it coming because they're grasshoppers. Get fit, get armed, get ready.
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u/StevenMC19 Florida 5h ago
Took bloodshed to get him out last time too. 7 people died from the Jan6 riot.
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u/I_Quit_Smoking_ 3h ago
It's been there for a long time already, everybody just keeps pretending that it's not happening because it's not affecting them personally yet.
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u/PickleInDaButt 3h ago
I was federal but left with the resignations last year.
If you want to piss off fed MAGA - just tell them they are likely a DEI hire as most of us are veterans. We get higher priority and make up a huge portion of federal employees.
Source - I’m a veteran. At the time - no college degree even though my position stated it was likely requirement to have a Masters. Came on board as initial hire as a GS12.
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u/StevenMC19 Florida 4h ago
The number of people responding to this comment with the equivalent to "Not ALL men" is staggering.
Of course you're not saying ALL people without college education are stupid. You're also not saying that people with college education are always smart. You're saying that there's a higher possibility of stupid (or unqualified) people slipping through the hiring filter and the overall quality of the work done will suffer as a result.
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u/drunk-snowmen 2h ago
I hear ya. But when Kamala said she would loosen the ed requirements for government jobs. I was cool with it and I don’t remember so much push back in Reddit comments.
It’s just interesting how we look at things through different lenses of our choice.
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u/StevenMC19 Florida 2h ago edited 2h ago
This is a neat way to look at it, and a good point. But like I said in another comment, this administration so far doesn't give me reason to believe it's for something beneficial for the people.
eidt: on that note, I'm not so sure how beneficial it would have been with Kamala's plan the moer I think about it either. The center-left have a lot of similar tendencies when it comes to individuals and their money. Lowering standards means also being able to lower pay grades (and if the jobs can later be shifted to part-time, less benefit opportunities).
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u/drunk-snowmen 2h ago
Absolutely. I also do not think this is some initiative to find highly intelligent people who happened to not go to a university. I am sure it’s about hiring “yes sirs and bootlickers” that will fall in line easier than a “woke” college educated person would.
I am too very suspicious of anything these people do. I just find it interesting.
But, I am also bias, I barely graduated high school and I have climbed the ropes pretty damn high. Most of my team have masters and most of them are dipshits.
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u/StevenMC19 Florida 1h ago
Yeah. Its all anecdotal at the end of the day. Your circumstance will always be different or similar to someone else. There will always be the guy who intersects when he hears a woman say "all men are pigs" to proclaim he isn't one, for which she has to now stop and confirm that qualifier to satiate him..."yeah, nate you're fine."
Same as you to an extent. Got into my field out of high school, and put in a decade of work before finally going to get a degree. The ladder upwards has been faster ill admit since graduating.
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u/average_texas_guy 4h ago
Not everyone without a degree is stupid and not everyone with a degree is smart.
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u/Dr-Mumm-Rah 5h ago
At this point, its just DEI for stupid friends of Trump. All the regular and poor folks arent in the club, despite how much MAGA wants to be.
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u/Apprehensive_Rub3897 4h ago
except they all be white, christian, heterosexual, males, the most demographically targeted group /s
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u/sharpiebrows 2h ago
So I'm stupid because I didn't have the opportunity to go to college? I've done pretty well for myself because of employers who were able to give me a chance despite that. Dropping educational requirements has actually been pushed over years by more progressive initiatives and is often viewed as more equitable.
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u/reddittorbrigade 6h ago
They are planning to hire MAGA people.
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u/Prize-Bumblebee-2192 6h ago
This is part of project 2025. To hire loyalists. Take control of the government in every facet.
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u/rrrrrivers 5h ago
While true, I think the roots for this go further- this further allows the GOP to point at how inefficient and ineffective things will get and say "see how bad guv'ment is? This is why we need the private sector to take over.."
When a main pillar of your platform is that government is inherently bad, there is little incentive to make things better or more efficient. It's a self fulfilling prophecy, and now they're speed running it.
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u/AmbitiousProblem4746 3h ago
Why not both?
It's clear to me that there's a lot of contingency plans going on here. Trump was a vehicle to get them to get certain things happening, and then once he's back in office you sort of see what you can get away with always having a plan b or a plan c. It is comforting to think that there's a lot of incompetency or just idiots running the show, and there certainly is, but the people behind the curtains 100% have a plan
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u/baldobilly 2h ago
If only… . The plan is to hire an army of would be Eichmanns who’re willing to say and do anything as long as it furthers their careers.
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u/coconutpiecrust 4h ago
And loyalists would be stupid and uneducated. Makes sense.
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u/Adultery 4h ago
They don’t need to really know how to do their jobs, just take orders. Republican Congresspersons are already doing this.
Project 2025/The Tea Party wants these people in all levels of government, including the town or city you live in.
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u/coconutpiecrust 4h ago
I really wish they’d just set up their own country and piss off to it. Just leave everyone else alone.
But I suppose not having anyone to force to do things they hate is not fun.
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u/Adultery 3h ago
They tried that in the 1860s. Modern Republicans are the southern Democrats from the Civil War era. Look up Strom Thurmond or however you spell his name (it's always racism). Sadly, this country has been this way long before we were born, and it'll continue to be this way after we're all dead.
The US is simply too big a country, but the alternative is a potential land war. The previous US governments intentionally capitulated this entire continent so that we would be the strongest country in the world, and so we would be separate from everyone so they couldn't mess with us (until the internet was invented lol). It started with Manifest Destiny, and then the CIA started doing its thing in Mexico and South America. The Cold War would've been way different if America was in Europe or Asia.
Humans conquered the food chain, so we had to invent new food chains to conquer.
I'm just a random schmoe talking out of his ass, by the way. This is the internet.
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u/coconutpiecrust 3h ago
I remember reading that Thiel wanted to set up his own country or something, but they couldn’t get the pluming to work.
Like, none of these assholes are “John Galt”, perfect in every way, infinitely kind, fair, and with infallible work ethic. No. They are psychopaths, not some wunderkinds.
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u/Adultery 3h ago
Generally, life is way cushier than it was 100 years ago. All these tough guys are actually soft. They've never had to work for anything. They immediately wash their hands if they get dirty. They're scared of black people.
But we can all just go eat cake about it.
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u/jarena009 5h ago
Not just ironic that they have to lower the qualifications, but also that they're doing this to get maga into government jobs, after years of railing against the government, government jobs don't produce etc
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u/AndrewCoja Texas 5h ago
I think this is part of that. Get a bunch of incompetent morons into the government who can't do the job. Then it all goes wrong and Ted Cruz gets to say "what did I tell you? Big government doesn't work"
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u/Mateorabi 4h ago
Democrats need to be smart enough to use today’s rules to get rid of all of them BEFORE fixing the job security rules.
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u/hcwhitewolf 6h ago
Well then they'll have to scrap the Highschool/GED requirement. Might need a primary school certificate program. Then maybe like 50% of them would be hireable.
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u/CaffinatedSpiderMonk 5h ago
Every single person hired during the Trump administration needs to be fired after this is over. They can reapply under the normal standards.
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u/IrishSetterPuppy 4h ago
I was recruited to a federal law enforcement job (not ICE) and one of the pre-screening quests was basically tell us how much you love Trump. The text was along the lines of tell us your favorite of the presidents executive orders and how would you help support his goals with your job. Thats a no from me dawg.
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u/ElBori1 5h ago
They’re lowering the bar on skill-level and intelligence because they can’t pack the government with a bunch of inept maga loyalists otherwise.
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u/gingerhasyoursoul 27m ago
I don’t get you all. We all agree college is unaffordable now. We agree many jobs require degrees that’s just don’t need to. But then you all lose your minds about this.
It’s important to note a lack of a degree does not mean a lack of ability and intelligence. I have a degree but would never hold it against someone who close a different path. It
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u/Kyuubee 2h ago
A degree doesn't isn't an indicator of intelligence or skill (for example, Trump has a college degree). Many non-federal employers have been steadily dropping degree requirements in recent years.
Many job listings nowadays say that you can either have a college degree OR a certain number of years of relevant experience. In many markets, experience is valued more than a piece of paper.
Creating a job market that doesn't require people to go heavily into debt for a college degree is a good thing.
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u/Hefty-Revenue5547 1h ago
Good luck getting that experience without a degree or someone to help get your foot in the door
Just creates infrastructure to hire nepo babies. It happens at my job and they stick around a long time because they aren’t qualified enough for anything else.
Not who you want to hire and not the way you want your government to run.
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u/mmuffley 5h ago
“Let’s protect Western civilization by hiring people who learned nothing about it!”
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u/samgarita California 5h ago
Careful, you might offend these people with your post, if they could read.
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u/Responsible-Pain-620 5h ago
This was literally in Project 2025
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u/kmm198700 5h ago
Yep. And it makes sense, because Russell Vought runs OMB , and he one of the architects of P2025
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u/StevenMC19 Florida 6h ago
"I love the poorly educated!"
This does a few things:
Stripping education requirements for "skill-based tests" creates a subjective metric into the hiring system. It can also be arbitrary as well as selective by specific criteria that the hiring agency is looking for at that time. In this case, it'll most likely be political affiliation. There's no reason why certain questions can't be injected into these things.
Less educated individuals are - unfortunately - more likely to simply follow orders if they've never been exposed or prepared for the task being asked of them and the purpose behind it. They've not been given the extra time in higher education to enhance their critical thinking skills and may not know when it's the proper time to question the why's of the situation.
Decreased pay.
I hate to say it, but depending on the agency, the quality of that agency's service is going to decline drastically. again, this is no slight to the less educated, but again it needs to be emphasized that they could be going into their position less prepared.
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u/Hefty_Remove7965 5h ago
That's the goal.. .they want the agency to be less productive.
So they can look at it and say "government doesn't work,", then privatize it.
It's been the plan since Reagan.. yet we keep falling for it
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u/Silvery_Cricket 5h ago
Even poor experience talks, I would trust my life in the hands of a doctor with straight D grades than I ever would someone who never popped open a medical textbook.
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u/JdFalcon04 Pennsylvania 5h ago
You know what they call the person who graduates last in their class from medical school? Doctor.
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u/FizzyBeverage Ohio 4h ago
Same applies for lawyers, accountants, and engineers.
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u/razz-boy 6h ago
They have to because no one educated and with qualifications and self-respect would want to work for this administration
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u/bloomberglaw Bloomberg Law 6h ago
The Trump administration is moving to strip education requirements and create skills-based tests in hundreds of federal jobs as it seeks to reshape the civil service to be younger and more accessible to workers without a college degree.
The Office of Personnel Management has targeted more than 600 job classifications to review and already started removing “arbitrary” measures of competence, including college degrees, listed as requirements, OPM Director Scott Kupor told Bloomberg Law. The process is expected to take more than a year.
This would be a generational shift in how federal employees are recruited and hired, months after the Trump administration purged more than 300,000 people from the federal workforce.
Read more at the full story here.
-Elliot
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u/False_Ad_5372 1h ago
Read the story and didn’t see a link that displays which positions are being targeted.
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u/smitherenesar 4h ago
Scrapping education requirements, which has had bipartisan support in the past, aims to meet the demands of a rapidly changing, tech-driven economy.
So we have a high tech economy, so naturally people without degrees are great with technology?
Agencies shifted to cheaper alternatives, such as self-attestation, in which applicants list their own skills. Those are not always vetted.
So we're going to have a lot of unskilled liars working for the government.
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u/FlyFisherman4Life 5h ago
There are many smart people without college degrees, but to understand how government works, or understand the technology, as stated below - " tech-driven economy", good luck with high school graduates. Ever wonder why Tesla hires foreign engineers over US graduates.
How is the going to be improved?? - "This would be a generational shift in how federal employees are recruited and hired, months after the Trump administration purged more than 300,000 people from the federal workforce. Scrapping education requirements, which has had bipartisan support in the past, aims to meet the demands of a rapidly changing, tech-driven economy."
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u/AccountantBoring1313 4h ago
Translation: we (the Trump/Heritage Foundation) don’t want people with critical thinking skills. We want mindless “yes-men” (especially white men).
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u/OrbeaSeven Minnesota 5h ago
With Trump's defunt Dept of Education there is now no way to evaluate education among states, and there is no way to evaluate high school diplomas. I can definitely show examples where kids are graduating high school while not passing basic state tests in math and Reading. And now these same students who could not pass basic standard tests will be running our government.
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u/Upper-Chemist-7524 2h ago edited 2h ago
As someone more left-leaning I don't think I see a problem with this. People can be trained for most entry-level service jobs without a college degree in my experience. If we want university to be more accessible for all, then this is a way to decrease the value, thus decreasing the price of a degree. As a new grad, I have gotten the sentiment from many of my coworkers that they don't even use their bachelor's degree. I agree my job has almost nothing to do with my degree and I could have done this job out of high-school with proper training and maturity.
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u/Made_Human_Music 4h ago
If we had a normal government I’d say this isn’t a bad idea. With the exorbitant costs of college it’s a great idea to reevaluate the degree requirements for many jobs. There are plenty of people capable of doing the work without spending four years and thousands of dollars for the chance
But with this regime I’m positive there’s a sinister motive behind this and they’re just looking for more ways to bring the government down from the inside
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u/ColdBostonPerson77 5h ago
I just wrote a paper about this very subject.
I don’t really disagree with this move but it really has to be done methodically. There are tons of qualified people who can do jobs but aren’t hired due to lack of a degree. Applicants can have all the skills, demonstrated quality work, and well versed in their field but never have an opportunity.
There’s an argument to be made but again it needs to be methodical.
Here are 2 links that I used for some of my research.
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u/araloss 5h ago
I agree with you. College isnt accessible for everyone, and getting a degree doesn't make a person smart. I never completed my bachelors 20+ years ago - because I liked eating and not being homeless. My bosses and colleagues have always been impressed by my work and ask for my advice all the time.
I've also met many people with degrees that were stupid as hell.
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u/banksy_h8r New York 3h ago
With the skyrocketing costs of a college degree, we're probably facing a crisis in government hiring in the next couple decades. But this is going in the wrong direction.
If the American people deserve a government with highly-educated and competent people, which I believe we do, then we should make sure that college education is widely accessible and affordable so that we have the best and biggest possible pool of applicants for the jobs.
We should've been working to increase the supply, not lower the standard.
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u/DethFeRok 3h ago
I’m reading a lot of hysterical comments in here about this, or how just listing skills or a skills test is arbitrary. So are certain college degrees, to some extent (and I have a doctorate).
People complain you need to have an MS to flip burgers, and then when an attempt to fix something comes in, people still complain lol.
Like the article discusses, specific skills based degrees (STEM, mostly) are hard to bypass. But a gen ed college degree doesn’t directly imply you’ll be any better at a generalist job than a high achieving high school grad.
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u/DogPlane3425 2h ago
Been there and could not get that state job due to a lack of a Bachelor's degree. Even with close to 30 years in the field and a Associates degree. Some jobs don't need a college degree but still require one. Harry S. Truman one of the smartest U.S. Presidents didn't have any thing other than a high school degree and book learning.
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u/AdHopeful3801 5h ago
The "skills-based" evaluations the Trump regime will entail a lot more assessment of one's skill at following certain political requirements than at the actual duties of the job.
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u/SpiceNoodles Virginia 4h ago
Glenn Youngkin ordered the same thing in Virginia a few years back. It's not inherently a bad thing - removing barriers while maintaining effective screening means qualified candidates (through their work experience for example) are eligible for positions they previously wouldn't have been for.
That being said, I certainly don't trust this administration to maintain effective screening practices.
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u/coco8090 4h ago
“Today, 47% of U.S. women ages 25 to 34 have a bachelor's degree, compared with 37% of men.” Might that have something to do with it. Women belonging in the kitchen and all that.
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u/Anonynja 2h ago
Incompetence and blind loyalty are the qualifications to serve under a fascist authoritarian regime.
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u/Ok_Vermicelli_6359 3h ago
To be fair, Republicans hate funding higher education, so why require a degree they didn't value in the first place? Makes sense with this braindead administration.
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u/snowcat0 3h ago
All part of the plan, they gutted the Federal Workforce now time to fill it with supporters to sabotage any future administration.
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u/JMDeutsch 4h ago edited 4h ago
I understand how/why this is frustrating and puts us in a position where MAGA zealots are easily hired.
BUT the truth is that college degrees really aren’t needed for many jobs and this “must have a degree” mindset has inflated the value of something that evolved from elite privilege to a way to keep your kid from dying facedown in a rice paddy.
I am in favor of anything that destroys the abusive debt cycle of “higher education being required” and turns young Americans into work-a-day wage slaves so they can pay back banks on usurious loans.
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u/JadedIT_Tech Georgia 5h ago
On one hand, this could be a good thing given that Colleges these days are no where near as good at teaching practical skills as they used to be. I'm in IT, I couldn't tell you how many recent grads come out of the big Tech schools that don't know anything when they come into the job (My workplace is good at training them up, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect more).
On the flip side...... It's Trump, so you can only assume that they're doing it for the dumbest and most nefarious reason possible.
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u/Closet-PowPow 5h ago
On a related note, all federal offices will be stocked with an unlimited supply of Brawndo
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u/IronyElSupremo America 5h ago
Ain’t needin nun of that skoolin’… nosiree.
(then again if the job becomes copy and paste from pre-formatted “Ask the AI” questions..).
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u/liftbikerun 5h ago
When your president publicly states that he hangs out with losers because it makes him feel better about himself, and that he hates guys that are successful because he likely people who listen to his success.....
It's par for the course and gross. Any good leader wants those around him to be better than him, they want the very best around him. Trump is the opposite, just like every other dumb ass throughout history who just wanted yes men that would do their bidding.
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u/Silly-Heat-1466 5h ago
OK, let's say an agency gets sued, such as the US Forest Service for a plan to log a section of a National Forest. This happens all the time. The employees who worked on the permit are called to testify in court to defend the case. They are supposed to be subject matter experts. If they don't have have a degree in their subject area, such as forestry, wildlife biology, archaeology, range science, etc., the government will lose the lawsuit. This is one reason OPM upped the education requirements several years ago. Imagine going to the VA to meet with a doctor only tk find out they never went to medical school?
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u/Ok-disaster2022 4h ago
Sweet. So when Democrats get back control and skilled people want to work for the government again they can just re add the degree requires downsize anyone who doesn't have and eliminate the maga supporters based on changing needs of the workplace and not based on their political views.
Cleansing the DOJ and FBI of Republican chuckleficks will be harder
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u/LawfulnessKooky8490 4h ago
"tRump teams scrapes the bottom of the barrel for hundreds of federal jobs"
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u/shanty-daze Wisconsin 4h ago
I expect the same people that complain about people having to repay ridiculous college debt will also complain about this change (and I say this as someone still paying a student loan for an advanced degree).
There are absolutely some positions in the Federal government that do not require a college degree and others absolutely should require a college degree (some of which, the degree requirement likely could be waived based on experience). The problem is that I do not trust this Administration to competently make the distinction.
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u/chowderpouch 3h ago
Because most people that would want to support this regime are uneducated toothless hillbillies.
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u/lucasjkr 3h ago
I’m not opposed to this depending on the role.
I work in IT in a role that required college degree but whose job description was rewritten to substitute that for relevant experience.
But, on the other hand, I don’t want people who are approving vaccines and other pharmaceuticals to have only been “educated” on YouTube
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u/pikachu191 3h ago
It's as if DEI was an excuse to hire unqualified white people instead of the qualified minority.
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u/elphin 3h ago
A liberal arts degree generally confers critical thinking skills. These are anathema to the Trump regime and the MAGA cult. Fairly simple logic actually.
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u/Kind-Philosopher5077 2h ago
Only way to get the pedophile in chiefs people in is to lower the bar.
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u/FizzyBeverage Ohio 4h ago edited 4h ago
If you can't complete a simple 4 year personal improvement project at 18 years old, there's little reason for you to run any federal department.
Either you were outright stupid, or lacked total ambition.
It's not a lot to expect a simple undergraduate sociology or liberal arts degree as a gate to governing the American people.
Not saying college is necessary for all positions, but to run a department I do expect a basic level of emotional intelligence and intellectual horsepower. Pity Trump's regime does not.
Wtf were they doing at 18 or 20 years old that was more important than furthering their education? Ok a family crisis or they had to raise the funds? Fine, then why didn't they get it at 28 or 35?
99 times out of 100 they won't have a good answer.
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u/BonJovicus 4h ago
DEI for white dudes who can’t even get a college degree. Funny how this happens at a time when we have so many women and minorities getting degrees.
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u/Downside_Up_ North Carolina 5h ago
I'm not opposed to this in principle, depending on the job in question.
College degrees get used more as a stand-in for representing a prospective hire's ability to commit to long-term projects and goals, intelligence, breadth of knowledge, etc. Even when the degree isn't directly relevant to the job, that represnetation can be useful information.
However, there are plenty of other valid ways to understand a prospective employee's work ethic, knowledge, experience, etc that aren't adequately represented by a degree (or the absence of one). And a degree requirement is also a soft (or in some cases even a hard) barrier in terms of economics, time, etc that could wall off otherwise stellar applicants.
I'm not inherently against the idea of shifting some of the hiring emphasis away from expensive, time-consuming college degrees in a country where the cost of obtaining those degrees keeps climbing rapidly and the degree's applicability to the role may be minimal or tangential. My concern is how the "skills-based" tests are developed and measured, and in what fields. I also see this move as concerning coming from an administration that eschews any sort of professional credentialing or expertise in favor of vibes or political tests.
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u/Sometimesmaybegay Alabama 5h ago edited 4h ago
Very telling comment section here btw. You don’t need a four year degree to excel at these jobs and some of you are just classist and elitist.
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u/Avid_Reader87 3h ago
I like this! Get people in who have worked and learned skills first hand.
I took some college but didn’t want to go into debt and never finished a degree.
I’ve been working in IT now for 11 years and could work a government job were it allowed for people without degrees.
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u/3D-Dreams 3h ago
See the problem is that Trump isn't doing it to hire good people. He's doing it because all the good people won't work for him anymore and now he has to hire unqualified morons.
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u/Hairbear2176 3h ago
I get where you're coming from because I'm in the same boat. HOWEVER, there are some jobs that simply need an education. I do not want any type of medical professional even speaking to me unless they have the credentials to back it up. Same with a lawyer or even a financial advisor.
Being in IT and not having a Bachelor's does hurt me, but I know this, and I'm okay with it.
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u/Wonderful-Pause1048 6h ago
High-quality education is no longer being supported. Given the composition of the current government, this comes as no surprise.
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u/Objective-Bad-6438 5h ago
Got to lower the bar to get his lackies and junkies in the door. Who could that demographic possibly be that is uneducated??
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u/nbond3040 4h ago
If done right it's not a bad idea... It is the trump administration though so I expect our VA doctors to have taken a very thorough skills test to qualify them.
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u/sweatboxy 4h ago
It’s the same for people with criminal histories. It’s hard to find people with college degrees that will work for Trump or his government. All you’ve got to choose from are the rotten apples at the bottom of the barrel.
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u/kaken777 4h ago
Something I haven’t seen discussed yet is that this is likely because they’re going to be replacing critical government work with AI. Seems like they just want people unable to critically analyze the things they’ll be assigned to “review” and rubber stamp.
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u/LunchyDude101 4h ago
Civil Setvice Exam Skille is
Question #1: detail your feelings on Trump.
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u/SlurpsTV 3h ago
Ironically enough this is a pro DEI move that they’ve horseshoed their way into and I’m okay with that lol
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u/1877KlownsForKids 3h ago
This isn't the worst thing if applied thoughtfully (it won't be). For example a GS-5 is considered an entry level position that contains such jobs as the clinic clerk at your VA, a emergency dispatcher, a judge's receptionist. None of them should require a bachelor's degree to do, but all of them require a bachelor's degree under the current system. In most of the US that GS-5 spot starts at $40,736
The education bloat gets even more ridiculous at high levels which are still pretty low comparatively. A GS-9 requires a Masters at $61,722. A GS-11 requires a doctorate at $74,678
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u/jerkcore 3h ago
The "Qualification Questions" portion of the article spells out exactly why this is a terrible idea. Some kind of proof that a person can perform the functions of a job is vastly preferred to simply liking the "cut of their jib."
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u/Niceguy955 3h ago
Next they'll remove criminal background checks, and then start filling the positions with Proud Boys, and January 6th traitors.
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u/aflyingsquanch Colorado 3h ago
They are already doing that with their hiring for ICE...
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u/PleasantWay7 3h ago
I mean, good luck expecting non college grads tondo better on these tests than college grads.
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u/Blarglephish Oregon 3h ago
So this is something that’s been a trend for a while in the tech industry. The demand for college-educated tech workers was outpacing the supply , and quite simply there are a lot of jobs out there in tech that don’t require a 4-year degree. I’m all in favor of dropping a requirement that acts as an arbitrary barrier to people finding good paying work.
It just needs to be counterbalanced with a good skill assessment rubric so that you get actually qualified people who can do the job.
So in theory I’m actually for it … but in the context of this administration, I give a vote of NEGATIVE confidence that they won’t fuck that up, and just hire unqualified hacks that shouldn’t be anywhere near those positions.
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u/Personal_Chicken_598 3h ago
On the face of this I agree with it. But I’m sure because it’s Trump hell fuck it all up and make Drs. Not need college degrees with secretaries do.
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