Today, New York City’s pay transparency law takes effect. Employers with 4 or more employees must provide salary or compensation information in job postings. NYC joins a handful of states that require employers to disclose pay information. California’s new pay transparency law goes into effect January 1.
For employers in states with pay transparency laws, the rules have turned out to be more of a gift than a problem. When employers publish pay ranges with their job postings, the number of qualified applicants rises. In addition, published pay scales allow candidates to choose which jobs they will apply for. That saves time because applicants – while potentially highly qualified – are unlikely to accept a position where the salary on offer is too low.
Washtenaw Community College could do something similar with their degree programs. Instead of publishing salary data that is either irrelevant or fabricated, the College could adopt a pay transparency standard that applies directly to the position prospective students train for. WCC graduates with this degree/certificate made between $X and $Y in 2021 while working in their fields.” Or “Local employers posted X positions in this field in 2021. The average starting salary was $Y.”
While we’re being transparent, the College could also indicate how many graduates in a particular program are working in a field that directly relates to their studies.
People want pay transparency information
This information is a form of pay transparency. It allows prospective students to determine whether they want to enroll in a program of study based on their projected salary and employability after graduation. It would also help WCC assess and improve the value of the degrees and non-degree certificates they offer. Another important data point worth knowing is the length of time a graduate is likely to benefit economically from their program of study. (Occupational and technical degrees often have an expiration date because those fields change more rapidly than degrees in academic fields do.)
The approach also holds administrators accountable, not only for providing complete and correct hiring and pay information, but also for producing programs that will result in gainful employment. If 30 graduates of a program are consistently competing for four annual job openings, those students deserve to know that before they enter the program.
Being transparent about employment prospects and annual pay will improve WCC’s program offerings. It may also increase enrollment. It will very quickly differentiate the programs that employers find valuable from those they don’t. The approach will provide a data-driven basis for producing, eliminating, and modifying academic programs. (We don’t need a repeat of the Culinary Arts program cancellation debacle.) It will also discourage the college from generating “new” certificate programs by simply remixing existing offerings from the course catalog.
Photo Credit: Marco Verch Professional Photographer, via Flickr
