Crystal Okonkwo grew up with traditional expectations around success — like getting a college degree — that shaped what she believed her future should look like.

Despite feeling unprepared, she enrolled in college right after high school and found herself struggling academically. Okonkwo eventually left her program after realizing that college wasn’t for her at that time, but it left her wondering about her next step.

Many of Okonkow’s Gen Z and younger millennial peers want an alternative path to success.

• They are coming of age amid record student debt (in 2024, Americans owed about $1.6 trillion in student loans — up 42% from 10 years ago), rising inflation, and a job market they view as stacked against them.
• Some are skipping the degree and turning to alternative ways to learn, where they can build skills and start meaningful careers without debt and four years of college.

At a time when employers are facing ongoing hiring challenges, this is a critical opportunity for businesses to embrace this shift and rethink talent pipelines to unlock a stronger and more engaged workforce.

Navigating an outdated system

After Okonkwo’s college experience, she signed up for a workforce readiness program where she learned interviewing strategies and gained access to job boards. But, Okonkwo was still frustrated.

“Every entry-level job required at least one year of experience,” she explained. “Where’s the one where there’s no experience? We need something to get our foot in the door so that one day we have one to two years of experience.”

Data backs up Okonkwo’s experience. According to “The Broken Marketplace: America’s School-to-Work Crisis,” a new study from the Schultz Family Foundation, 77% of employers require at least one year of experience for entry-level roles, and 50% require two or more years.

While the majority of employers say they can’t find experienced candidates, very few businesses offer opportunities to gain that experience:

• 38% offer internships (with many limited only to degree-seeking students)
• 14% provide job shadowing opportunities, keeping more than 15 million young Americans from reaching their full potential.
• 43% of employers require a minimum of a four-year degree for entry-level roles, with 40% admitting that those degree requirements are not necessary, but rather an industry practice.

This misalignment not only hurts job candidates but could also significantly affect the future of the U.S. economy: 6.7 million jobs are predicted to be added by 2033, requiring a larger pipeline of skilled workers to fill those roles.

An uncertain future

For Lillia Boone, this data is personal. An auto mechanic by training, she was thrilled when she landed an apprenticeship at a car dealership.

“It was exactly what I needed to further my career,” Boone said. But on her first day, she learned there had been a change and that she wouldn’t be getting the apprenticeship. Instead, Lillia was placed in a technician job with no path to advancement.

“That led to being stuck in a rut for a while,” Boone said.

The challenges Okonkwo and Boone experienced exemplify the barriers facing many young Americans today. More than half of Gen Zers surveyed in “The Broken Marketplace” expressed concern or uncertainty about whether there will be enough job opportunities in the future.

One respondent said, “There are so many paths, but each path allows you to go down one path and not explore others. … [There are] a lot of different options out there ... and each one expects something different. … There’s so much knowledge [that I] can’t get.”

Finding new pathways to fulfillment

Employers struggling to fill roles are facing an opportunity gap. Gen Zers and younger millennials are blazing new paths that could solve hiring challenges for employers who recruit, hire, and promote based on skills and potential instead of degrees.

Unwilling and unable to shoulder the financial burden of college to advance her career, Boone decided to pursue IT Support at Merit America, a nonprofit that offers a scalable, flexible alternative to traditional higher education through technical training provided by third-party trainers like Google, coaching, and wraparound support. Boone discovered that her experience and skills blended perfectly for a new role as a semiconductor technician. She landed a job within a week of completing the program.

Okonkwo was introduced to SkillUp through a workforce-readiness program, where she was able to explore careers and build her skill set without the high cost of college.

SkillUp coaches encouraged Okonkwo to pursue certifications, and she earned Google credentials that helped her land interviews and build confidence. She returned to college with a clearer sense of purpose and is studying health care administration, expecting to complete her bachelor’s degree this year.

Redefining hiring and advancement strategies

Okonkwo and Boone’s experiences make it clear: When employers embrace alternative hiring routes, they gain access to a pool of talented people they might otherwise overlook.

Rather than relying on degrees, employers can shift to skills- and aptitude-based hiring and redesign the interview process to focus on qualities such as resilience, problem-solving skills, and continuous learning. Companies that have adopted these methods report higher retention and performance.

The Atlanta Hawks have implemented several of these strategies to cultivate future-ready talent. The NBA franchise has built a culture of long-term investment in its people, creating pathways to opportunity based on employees’ unique strengths and skills.

“Our future depends on embracing skills as the measure of potential and breaking free from the limits of tradition,” said Camye Mackey, the Hawks’ executive vice president and chief people, diversity, and inclusion officer. “If we stay confined to conventional approaches, we’ll only replicate the past.”

When employers build systems that prioritize skills, ambition, and potential, everyone benefits: Workers get a path to a meaningful career, and businesses get a more capable and resilient workforce.

Unlocking a stronger future for employers and workers

Okonkwo and Boone represent a generation that is reshaping the definition of meaningful work. They are pursuing opportunities from nontraditional sources and choosing pathways that align with their priorities and values, rather than top-down definitions of success.

For employers, this moment is both a challenge and an invitation. Traditional talent pipelines are thinning, and the old signals of ability don’t fully capture a person’s potential. The companies that will succeed in the future are the ones already learning from Gen Zers and younger millennials by investing in on-the-job training, apprenticeships, and clear advancement paths. And they’re recognizing that the best candidate isn’t always the one with the degree — it’s the one with the resilience, drive, and hunger to learn.

Merit America is supported by the Charles Koch Foundation, which as part of the Stand Together community funds cutting-edge research and helps expand postsecondary educational options.

SkillUp is supported by Stand  Together Trust, which provides funding and strategic capabilities to innovators, scholars, and social entrepreneurs to develop new and better ways to tackle America’s biggest problems. SkillUp provides a direct-to-worker career support ecosystem through its site that has training, jobs, and careers backed by workforce research, as well as a variety of wrap-around supports curated and created by the team.

Learn more about Stand Together’s efforts to transform the future of work and explore ways you can partner with us.