While four-year college degrees are largely viewed as a direct path into career-ladder jobs (AI fears notwithstanding), two-year degrees and shorter-term certificates are seen as less of a sure thing. A new report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce provides a better picture of the jobs that associate degree and certificate earners can access and what their career trajectories look like—essential information to help improve our understanding of non-bachelor’s pathways.
First up, some definitions: Jobs requiring a postsecondary certificate or an associate degree are here termed “middle-skills occupations.” Categories include installation and maintenance of equipment, office and administrative support, computer science, transportation and logistics, and so on. There are hundreds of such occupations across the categories. The Georgetown researchers use a combination of national and metro-area-level data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau from 2018 through 2023 to estimate wages for workers across the 55 largest metro areas in the country. They identify what they term “springboard occupations”: 159 middle-skills jobs in 22 occupational categories that offer workers above-median earnings at the start of their careers (based on local data) and strong wage growth over time—ensuring that inflation won’t erode their economic security. They use those springboard occupations—some of which provide earnings comparable to some bachelor’s degree-specific jobs—as the basis for their analysis.
The researchers find that just 15 percent of early-to-mid-career middle-skills workers in the largest metro areas are employed in a springboard occupation. The rest are in lower-paid and low-salary-growth fields. Why so few springboarders? Largely because no metro area has jobs in even a majority of the springboard fields available. The highest percentage of springboard occupations in any area is 47 percent; the lowest is just 28 percent. The most common such jobs are electrician, firefighter, general and operations manager, and police officer, but each metro area has a unique combination of springboard jobs. Los Angeles, for example, has the largest number of discrete springboard occupations, while St. Louis has the largest share of middle-skills workers currently employed in springboard occupations. Overall, early-career workers in middle-skills springboard occupations (ages 20–24) have median annualized earnings of $42,500, an amount that increases by 59 percent to $67,500 by mid-career (ages 35–44). By contrast, median annualized earnings for workers in non-springboard middle-skills occupations are $35,600 in early career and just $47,000 in mid-career.
Adding to the low percentage of springboarders is a mismatch between credentials earned and jobs available. The researchers compute a ratio of each metro area’s annual number of middle-skills credential earners (those that align with springboard occupations) to the projected annual number of job openings available in all occupations (both springboard and non-springboard occupations). Their findings indicate a shortage of properly credentialed workers for springboard occupations in each of the 55 metro areas through at least 2034, although the exact nature of the shortages varies from place to place. Indianapolis, for example, overproduces associate degree and credential earners overall, but still faces shortages of properly credentialed workers in six different occupational categories, including architecture, computer science, and business operations. Nashville’s production of properly credentialed workers, on the other hand, is expected to meet a mere 9 percent of the projected annual springboard job openings. The biggest shortages are projected to occur in the construction and extraction; installation, maintenance, and repair; and production occupational groups. Similar shortages can be found in nearly all 55 metro areas.
Taken together, these findings indicate millions of good-paying, high-wage-growth jobs becoming available all across the country for workers with less than a four-year degree. But without changes, knowledge of those jobs and individuals’ access to them will continue to lag availability. The report’s recommendations start in middle school, with an expansion of career and technical education (CTE) programs that introduce students to career pathways requiring less than a four-year college degree. They also recommend partnerships among employers, high schools, and postsecondary institutions to better define—and publicize—the steps needed to earn credentials and to move directly from high school graduation to postsecondary certification to employment. Better alignment between workforce needs and credential programs being offered in a given metro area will also help direct students to credentials in high demand in their area. There’s nothing wrong with earning a credential that is in demand in some other city, but students should be aware of that before they start on a pathway. Data such as those collected in this report will be vital to students, educational institutions, and employers going forward.
Source: Emma Nyhof McLeod, Catherine Morris, and Jeff Strohl, “Springboards to Opportunity: The Middle-Skills Occupational Landscape in 55 US Metro Areas,” Georgetown University, Center on Education and the Workforce (August 2026).
