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In outlining his higher education agenda at the outset of his administration, President Obama set the goal that by 2020, the United States would lead the world in the proportional rate of college graduates.

But a growing well of data suggests that the attainment of a bachelor's degree may be less of an indicator of a person's success in the workforce than conventional wisdom would have it. Also integral to career success are the material skills that students learn along the way in their course of study, even if that path doesn't result in a diploma from a traditional four-year institution.

Even Obama's secretary of education, Arne Duncan, has acknowledged the under-recognized importance of sub-baccalaureate programs--such as associate's degrees--as a gateway to the job market.

"There is a lot of talk these days about the need to boost college and career readiness. But the truth is that most people--and I include myself here--have focused primarily on college readiness," Duncan said at a conference in Washington this spring, as cited by EdWeek.org (subscription required). "Too often, career readiness is an afterthought."

Duncan called for a revamping of career and technical education, which he described as "overlooked" in the nation's education policy discussion, arguing that CTE programs are integral to improving the U.S. job situation and the viability of the new entrants to the workforce.

That means an increasing emphasis on career-themed programs in both secondary schools and sub-baccalaureate studies, such as certificates or associate degrees from vocational schools or community colleges.

The economy is changing: what it means for higher education

Many education experts have pointed out that the job market has been evolving toward an ever-greater value placed on specialized training. And whether that training comes from a traditional four-year school or a certificate or associate program, in many professional fields, appears to make little difference.

New statistics about post-secondary education and the labor force suggest that higher salaries correlate less to the number of years of college that a person completes than whether they work in the field in which they received formal training.

The shift in focus toward measuring programs of study and their occupational outcomes has emerged from a broad recognition among policy-makers and educational researchers that the more generalized correlations between employment and salary and level of educational attainment weren't telling the whole story. Several organizations have been stepping up to fill the data void. The National Crosswalk Service Center, a federally funded organization that maintains data on occupations, industries and training programs, has developed new sets of tools to better correlate education, income and occupation drawing on datasets from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

Those agencies, in turn, have been working to develop more precise measures of where various educational paths have led students into the workforce.

One of the earlier efforts, a 2007 NCES study (PDF available here) examining postsecondary occupational education and the workforce, determined that "credential completion was not found to be related to salary levels," but that students who worked in their fields of training fared far better than those who took jobs in unrelated sectors.

The NCES study "revealed that average salary increased with years of education--but only among students who were employed in a job that was related to their education," the authors wrote. "These findings for credential attainment and years of education suggest a relationship between skill development (rather than credential attainment per se) and labor market outcomes."

Data suggest salaries tied to skills training

In other words, the salaries job seekers can expect are closely correlated to the skills and training they receive in sub-baccalaureate programs, rather than the completion of a degree or certificate program. The upshot: workforce entrants might find they can land a good job in an in-demand field with less education than they would have thought.

More recently, the Census Bureau last year published an analysis of the employment outcomes for sub-baccalaureate students that largely echoed the NCES findings about occupational training and income. The Census report also underscored the differences among various fields of training, concluding: "Taken together, sub-baccalaureate degrees have positive economic effects, but there are conditions where these degrees do not pay off." As an example of the inter-field disparity, the researchers noted that workers with a vocational degree in a mechanical field enjoyed a mean income 40 percent higher than those with an associate's degree in education.

But as employers look to fill positions requiring higher measures of specialization and training, job-seekers without any postsecondary education will face ever-dimmer prospects, experts warn.

A 2010 study compiled by researchers at Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce projected that by 2018, 63 percent of all jobs will require at least some postsecondary education. The researchers also estimate that employers will need 22 million new workers with postsecondary degrees--either bachelor's or associate's--projecting a shortfall of 3 million candidates. What's more, the researchers project that employers will demand 4.7 million more workers with postsecondary certificates, describing postsecondary education of some format as "the gatekeeper to the middle and upper class."

The report notes that job-seekers without any postsecondary education will largely be relegated to three sectors with low or declining wages: food and personal services, sales and office support, and blue collar. By contrast, the researchers forecast that in the fastest growing industries (information services, private education services, government and public education services, financial services, professional and business services and health care services), which will account for 40 percent of all U.S. jobs in 2018, between 75 percent and 90 percent of the positions will require postsecondary education or training.

"America needs more workers with college degrees, certificates and industry certifications," said Anthony Carnevale, the center's director, in a statement. "If we don't address this need now, millions of jobs could go offshore."

By official measures, sub-baccalaureate education has been sharply rising in recent years. The Department of Education has reported that the number of sub-baccalaureate degrees awarded soared 28 percent from 1997 to 2007, with the growth rate in the middle of the last decade exceeding that of bachelor's degrees.

Successful model of hybrid career-academic high school program

But some educational reformers argue that casting academic and technical or career training as an either/or proposition is a false choice. In California, for instance, a program called Linked Learning has been gaining momentum in the state's secondary schools, and has been praised by many as a model for the future of the American high school.

The initiative emphasizes an integrated approach that blends academic instruction and practical training in a blended experience that seeks to give graduating students a better idea of what postsecondary path might be the best fit, and ultimately boost the rate of enrollment in four-year, two-year, and career or technical programs.

Buoyed with an expanding body of historical statistics and future projections, Linked Learning emerged from the recognition that the market for well-paying jobs is transforming into a more professionalized landscape, anchored in specialized postsecondary education and training.

"The day when people left high school to go to work in the local industry and then worked their way up is disappearing. Starting out, straight from high school, on the loading dock or in the mail room and climbing to the CEO's corner office is no longer an option," said the authors of the Georgetown report. "People do not go to work in industries anymore. They get educated or trained, go to work in occupations, and progress in an occupational hierarchy."

For related coverage from Schools.com, see:

• Degree value in dollars: It pays to be unpopular (infographic)
• Upward Bound supports first-generation, college-bound high schoolers
• Price of admission: most colleges failing to serve low-income students
• Career comparison tool: Compare careers by salary and education (interactive tool)