Listener supported WNYC Studios.

Brian Laird on WNYC Studios. You know, right now more than half of working Americans don't have a four-year

college degree, but many of them have something else. Skills, skills they picked up through

community college, military service, boot camps, quote-unquote, certifications, apprenticeships, or just learning on the job.

These workers are sometimes called stars, skilled through alternative routes, stars.

And yet research shows these workers are often shut out of well-paying jobs, not because they

can't do them, but because a degree is used as a

shortcut to determine who's qualified.

So now we'll continue a series of conversations that we've begun here on the Brian Lerrishel,

looking at economic mobility for stars, how the job market treats them, how policy

might better support them, and what real people navigating

this space want to share. This is actually the second of 10 total segments we'll be doing on the show

with a Gates Foundation grant focused on these issues. Joining us today, Audrey McAhell, Senior

Vice President of Private Sector and Membership Experience at the

nonprofit Opportunity at Work, which is pushing for fair hiring practices that opened doors

for stars, and Elias Siddiqui, a marketing operations specialist in Philadelphia,

who entered the tech field without a college degree and built her

career by tapping into alternative pathways to learning. Audrey, Alia, welcome to WNYC. Thank you so

much for coming on. Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having us. Thank you, Brian. And listeners,

we also invite your calls. If you have built a career without a

college degree, or if you've tried and struggled to get ahead, what's worked for you and what

barriers have you hit? 212-433, WNYC, if you want to tell a story. And what are the specific skills,

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