Report: Need Grows for Postsecondary Health Care Training

Low productivity and growing demand in the health care sector will lead to millions of new jobs in the next eight years, according to a study -- called Healthcare -- released Thursday by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. The study, one of several put out by the group about the current and future shape of the employment market and the implications for the education system, identified the following ways higher education will be affected by this growing sector demand:

• A bachelor's degree will be required for 24 percent of all health care jobs in 2020, up from 21 percent in 2010. The study noted that the demand for postsecondary talent in health care trails only science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields and education occupations.
• A graduate degree will be required for 28 percent of all health care jobs -- the second-highest proportion of all occupations.
• Between 1992 and 2008, the proportion of staff nurses with a bachelor's degree increased from 31 percent to 40 percent. This shift toward bachelor's degrees will crowd members of some minority groups out of the nursing profession: Compared to white and Asians Americans, African-American and Hispanic nurses are more likely to have a diploma or associate degree than a bachelor's degree in nursing.
• There is a strong correlation between socioeconomic status and access to medical school.
• The medical field remains disproportionately white and Asian, even though access is improving for members of other minority groups.