The sharpest divide in American politics is no longer race, income, or geography—it's education. Whether a voter holds a bachelor's degree now predicts their ballot almost as accurately as party registration, a trend that reshaped the 2024 election and is forcing both parties to recalibrate.
According to Pew Research Center's validated-voter study, college graduates backed Kamala Harris by 16 points in 2024, while non-degree voters favored Donald Trump by 14 points. That non-college margin has nearly doubled since 2016, when Trump's edge was just 8 points. State-level data reinforces the pattern: the share of adults with a four-year degree is now one of the strongest indicators of whether a state leans red or blue.
Jay Rogers, a financial professional with over 30 years in private equity and wealth management, argues this divide reflects a broader societal failure to value competence over credentials. Rogers, who founded an investment consulting firm in Orange County, notes that his own licenses and degrees never taught him to spot fraud or read a distressed balance sheet—skills he honed through experience, not classrooms. He points to his time coaching youth sports for families without college degrees, and his work alongside EMTs, as evidence that capability often flourishes without formal credentials.
Historically, credentialism has deep roots. Medieval guilds controlled entry into trades not by testing skill but by restricting who could try. Economist Milton Friedman warned that occupational licensing often recreates those guild dynamics. Today, more than 20% of American workers require government licenses, up from roughly 5% in Friedman's era, with some estimates nearing 30%. The imbalance is stark: California mandates 400 hours of training for manicurists, more than double the hours needed to become an EMT.
The economic consequences are uneven. Strada Institute and Burning Glass found that humanities and cultural studies graduates face a 55% underemployment rate a year after graduation—more than double that of engineering or health graduates. A diploma, Rogers argues, does not confer common sense or merit; it simply signals persistence through a system that often rewards access over ability.
Credentials do serve legitimate purposes—few would want a surgeon who skipped medical school. But the gates built around them often protect incumbents rather than the public. After the Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions in 2023, many medical schools turned to holistic review and adversity narratives to preserve diversity, yet Black matriculation fell 11.6% and Hispanic matriculation dropped 10.8%, even as applications from both groups rose.
Non-college voters, who outnumber degree holders at the ballot box, did not suddenly turn against intelligence. They have long watched gatekeepers treat diplomas as moral credentials and reshape the economy around that belief. Republicans have capitalized on this math, while both parties have flirted with reform. Trump stripped degree requirements from federal jobs by executive order in 2020; Harris pledged to do the same in her 2024 campaign.
Rogers urges both parties to go further—roll back occupational licensing that protects incumbents, and reward apprenticeships and demonstrated skill as the building trades already do. His own FINRA exams, he says, only proved he could pass a test, not that he was trustworthy. The country, he argues, would be better served by asking what people can actually do, rather than what permission slips they hold. That shift, he believes, could begin to heal the deepest political rift of our time.
