Most High Paying Jobs Opening Through the End of the Decade in Wisconsin Will Require a Bachelor's Degree

Wednesday, February 7th, 2024 -- 9:01 AM

(Joe Schulz, Wisconsin Public Radio) Most of the higher-paying jobs opening in Wisconsin through the end of the decade will require at least a bachelor’s degree.

According to Joe Schulz with Wisconsin Public Radio, that’s according to a new report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, which examined employment projections from the state Department of Workforce Development for 2020 to 2030.

The report defines high-paying jobs as those with median wages of $50,000 annually. That measure exceeds the state’s median annual pay of $41,150 as of 2020. Joe Peterangelo, a senior researcher at Wisconsin Policy Forum and the report’s author, said the goal of the study was to provide additional context to debates surrounding the value of higher education as many grapple with student loan payments.

“We were specifically interested in those higher-paying jobs because that’s part of the debate,” he said. While 74 percent of all projected annual job openings in the state through 2030 typically will not require a college degree or credential, such occupations only account for 26 percent of the openings with median salaries of $50,000 or more, the report said.

Of annual high-paying job openings, 58.1 percent will require a bachelor’s or advanced degree, and 5.9 percent will require an associate degree or postsecondary non-degree award, the report says. “Only about a third (of the jobs) in that pool are jobs that do not require any sort of college credential, but that’s still a good number of jobs,” Peterangelo said.

The Wisconsin Policy Forum also found that 91 percent of projected job openings with a median salary of $75,000 or more require a bachelor’s or advanced degree. Those numbers include job openings from retirements as well as new jobs created.

When looking exclusively at expected new jobs, the report says nearly 70 percent of high-paying jobs will require at least a bachelor’s degree. “What that says to me is that the future is looking like it’s more favoring higher education than even the current existing job market that the state has,” Peterangelo said.

“That’s another indication that a college degree is certainly going to be valuable.” An August 2023 report from Wisconsin Policy Forum also found that lower-paying jobs were more likely to be hit hard by the pandemic recession.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.