US / Education gap widens Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce finds

The projected shortfall between the demand for workers with university degrees and the supply of Americans who have them continues to widen, according to new research from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce.

In an update of its widely cited estimates last released in 2010, the center says that, at current graduation rates, there will be five million more jobs requiring employees with university degrees by 2020 than people to fill them.

That’s up significantly from the gap projected just three years ago, when the center predicted that the nation would fall short by three million college-educated workers by 2018.

It portends “a major shortage of college-educated workers, especially as baby boomers retire,” says Anthony Carnevale, the center’s director.

The 2010 report helped propelled policymakers to push for more students to enroll in, and graduate from, college.

But a growing chorus of economists and sociologists is expressing skepticism that the situation is as dire as suggested.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor

via Reported skills gap widens—and so does skepticism | Hechinger Report.