Raphael Stevens

As more employers recognize that the lack of a four-year college degree doesn’t mean a potential worker doesn’t have value, the return on investment for university graduates is dropping.
Harris Poll found 51% of U.S. adults say costs have impacted their ability to pursue a post-high school education.
An effort is underway at educational institutions like Dallas College, Miami Dade College and Western Governors University, to define and credential individual skills with a broad range of employers so that becoming qualified to work can be separate from or combined with earning a college degree.

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For decades, a college education was the “golden ticket” to the American Dream, translating into higher lifetime earnings and better job security.
To that point, the median college graduate makes a total of $2.8 million throughout their career, compared to $1.6 million (a 70% difference) earned by their high school graduate peers, according to a 2021 study by Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

But as today’s businesses demand more technological skills, and higher education gets more expensive, some liberal arts graduates have been disappointed that the college dividend they expected from all the money they spent has become elusive.
This dividend is likely to decrease further as employers recognize that the lack of a credential from a four-year college doesn’t mean a person lacks the skills, drive or ambition needed to succeed in the workplace.
The result is a decade of declining college enrollment, suggesting that millions of Americans are now either unwilling or unable to pay the high price associated with a college degree. A recent Harris Poll found that 51% of all adults in the U.S. say the costs associated with higher education have impacted their ability to pursue a post-high school education.
More from Personal Finance:How much in student debt could Biden forgive?Biden extends payment pause on federal student loansIs college really worth it?
While it may have a negative impact on some colleges, this trend could be a boon to expanding economic and social mobility.

Colleges have traditionally been ranked on their research and exclusivity, not on their return on investment or the employability of their students. Even colleges that provide great employment opportunities for their STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates may not create similar ROI for their liberal arts students.
Higher education is understandably resistant to having a crude economic measure, such as return on investment, applied to its broader social benefits.
However, it is undeniable that the proliferation of low-quality, high-cost degrees has diluted the value of higher education for some, contributed to the racial wealth gap and brought the previously unassailable social goal of perpetually expanding participation in higher education into doubt.
A pathway to the American Dream that was once a source of hope for so many, isn’t as clear as it once was.

Complicating this picture is the fact that many employers have long found it convenient to use a college degree as a gating requirement even for lower-skilled jobs in order to make the screening of resumes more efficient.
Nearly across the board, jobs that previously were occupied by non-college graduates are being filled by those with degrees.
In 2000, 18% of technicians held degrees, compared to 36% in 2019. Jobs as a police officer or firefighter saw a 13% rise in likelihood to have a bachelor’s degree. Qualification inflation in the job market drives many students to low quality but often expensive colleges just to get their foot in the door.
But changes are coming that will offer some relief to students anxious to enter the workforce more economically.

The pressure placed on businesses by the pandemic, and the Great Resignation has already made some employers take a fresh look at how they assess job applicants. Companies have begun to seek out new or previously overlooked sources of talent, including those without college degrees.
For example, Google creates opportunities for non-traditional talent through a career certificate program, which positions participating talent for jobs through an employer consortium of more than 150 companies, including Deloitte, SAP, Verizon, Walmart and Google itself.
The truth is that a majority of jobs do not really require a college degree, but they do require skills — both technical knowledge and so-called “soft skills” needed to relate to customers and co-workers.
There are plenty of ways to provide people with the skills needed to succeed in the workplace other than four — or even two — years of college and the debt that comes with it.

Promise of skills-based education

Nitat Termmee | Moment | Getty Images

One of the most promising approaches is skills-based education.
Online and in-person short courses can certify the skills employers need in six months or less at low or no cost to the student. A revolutionary effort is underway at innovative educational institutions like Dallas College, Miami Dade College and Western Governors University, to define and credential individual skills in collaboration with a broad range of employers so that becoming qualified to work can be either separate from or combined with earning a college degree.
The organization I work for, the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, recently partnered with Coursera to offer 200,000 scholarships for free certificates focused on technical and employability skills through The American Dream Academy.
With these scholarships, students straight from high school or those looking to increase their earning power can take short courses created by leading companies including Google, IBM and Meta, gaining in-demand technical skills and earning valuable credentials. More than 150 leading companies have already stepped up to recognize these certificates as qualifications leading to good paying jobs.
There are more than 77 million American workers without college degrees, according to Opportunity@Work. As many as 30 million of these workers have the skillsets required for higher paying jobs but are held back by degree requirements.
Embracing and recognizing alternative educational pathways to employment can play a critical role in expanding access to the American Dream, maintaining American competitiveness and creating the diverse workforce needed for tomorrow.
— By Kerry Healey, PhD. Healey is president of the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream. She previously served as president of Babson College and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk calls hydrogen “the most dumb thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage.”
He made his comments during a wide-ranging interview at the Financial Times Future of the Car summit.
Musk may be dismissive about hydrogen’s role in the energy transition, but other influential voices are a little more optimistic.

Elon Musk has a history of expressing strong opinions about hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells. A few years ago, when the subject came up during a discussion with reporters at the Automotive News World Congress, the electric vehicle magnate described hydrogen fuel cells as “extremely silly.”
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has reiterated his skepticism about hydrogen’s role in the planned shift to a more sustainable future, describing it as “the most dumb thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage.” 
During an interview at the Financial Times Future of the Car summit on Tuesday, Musk was asked if he thought hydrogen had a role to play in accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels.

“No,” he replied. “I really can’t emphasize this enough — the number of times I’ve been asked about hydrogen, it might be … it’s well over 100 times, maybe 200 times,” he said. “It’s important to understand that if you want a means of energy storage, hydrogen is a bad choice.”
Expanding on his argument, Musk went on to state that “gigantic tanks” would be required to hold hydrogen in liquid form. If it were to be stored in gaseous form, “even bigger” tanks would be needed, he said.
Described by the International Energy Agency as a “versatile energy carrier,” hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in sectors such as industry and transport.
In 2019, the IEA said hydrogen was “one of the leading options for storing energy from renewables and looks promising to be a lowest-cost option for storing electricity over days, weeks or even months.”
The Paris-based organization added that both hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels were able to “transport energy from renewables over long distances — from regions with abundant solar and wind resources, such as Australia or Latin America, to energy-hungry cities thousands of kilometres away.”

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Musk has a history of expressing strong opinions about hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells.
A few years ago, when the subject came up during a discussion with reporters at the Automotive News World Congress, the electric vehicle magnate described hydrogen fuel cells as “extremely silly.”
In June 2020 he tweeted “fuel cells = fool sells,”  adding in July of that year: “Hydrogen fool sells make no sense.” 
Judging by his comments this week, he remains unconvinced about hydrogen.
“It does not naturally occur on Earth, so you either have to split water with electrolysis or crack hydrocarbons,” he told the Financial Times.
“When you’re cracking hydrocarbons, you really haven’t solved the fossil fuel problem, and the efficiency of electrolysis is poor.”
Today, the majority of hydrogen production is based on fossil fuels. Another method of production includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen.
If the electricity used in this process comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar then some call it green or renewable hydrogen.
Hydrogen projects using electrolysis have attracted interest from major companies and business leaders in recent years, but it would appear Musk is not a fan.
“The efficiency of electrolysis is … poor,” he told the Financial Times. “So you really are spending a lot of energy to … split hydrogen and oxygen. Then you have to separate the hydrogen and oxygen and pressurize it — this also takes a lot of energy.”
“And if you have to liquefy … hydrogen, oh my God,” he continued. “The amount of energy required to … make hydrogen and turn it into liquid form is staggering. It is the most dumb thing that I could possibly imagine for energy storage.”
Different viewpoints
Musk may be dismissive about hydrogen’s role in the energy transition, but other influential voices are a little more optimistic. These include Anna Shpitsberg, who is deputy assistant secretary for energy transformation at the U.S. Department of State.
During a recent panel discussion moderated by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble, Shpitsberg called hydrogen “a game-changing technology that speaks to a variety of other sources … because it can underpin nuclear, it can underpin gas, it can underpin renewables, it can clean a good portion of it and so can CCUS [carbon capture utilization and storage].”
Elsewhere, February saw Michele DellaVigna, Goldman Sachs’ commodity equity business unit leader for the EMEA region, highlight the important role he felt it would have going forward.
“If we want to go to net-zero we can’t do it just through renewable power,” he said.
“We need something that takes today’s role of natural gas, especially to manage seasonality and intermittency, and that is hydrogen,” DellaVigna argued, going on to describe hydrogen as “a very powerful molecule.”
The key, he said, was to “produce it without CO2 emissions. And that’s why we talk about green, we talk about blue hydrogen.”
Blue hydrogen refers to hydrogen produced using natural gas — a fossil fuel — with the CO2 emissions generated during the process captured and stored. There has been a charged debate around the role blue hydrogen can play in the decarbonization of society.
“Whether we do it with electrolysis or we do it with carbon capture, we need to generate hydrogen in a clean way,” DellaVigna said. “And once we have it, I think we have a solution that could become, one day, at least 15% of the global energy markets which means it will be … over a trillion dollar market per annum.” More

Air passenger traffic in Dubai may reach pre-pandemic levels in 2024, a year earlier than previously expected, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said.
Passenger numbers plunged during the pandemic, but Dubai International Airport remained the busiest airport for international passengers in 2020 and 2021, according to the Airports Council International.
Separately, Griffiths said it is up to the Dubai government, which owns Dubai Airports, whether the company should hold an initial public offering.

Air passenger traffic in Dubai may reach pre-pandemic levels in 2024, a year earlier than previously expected, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said.
“We recorded 13.6 million passengers in that first quarter [at Dubai International Airport]. This is causing us to revise our forecast for the year,” he told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on Wednesday, calling it an “extremely encouraging” result.

“Originally, we thought 2025, but it’s quite likely we’re going to be back to pre-Covid levels — maybe as early as Q1 or Q2 of 2024,” he said.
The first quarter passenger numbers for 2022 are up nearly 140% from the same period in 2021, and represent a 15.7% increase from the last quarter of 2021, Dubai Airports said in a press release.

Some of the visitors to Dubai actually are helping boost our point-to-point traffic numbers to more than 100% of pre-Covid levels.

Paul Griffiths
CEO, Dubai Airports

Air traffic plunged during the pandemic, but Dubai International Airport remained the busiest airport for international passengers in 2020 and 2021, according to the Airports Council International.
The airport served 29.1 million passengers in 2021and 25.9 million in 2020. Griffiths said he expects traffic to hit 58.3 million passengers this year — still a far cry from numbers before the pandemic, when the airport saw 86.4 million customers come through in 2019.
Dubai Airports, which is owned by the city’s government, manages Dubai International and Dubai World Central Airports in the United Arab Emirates.

Air passenger traffic in Dubai may reach pre-pandemic levels in 2024, a year earlier than previously expected, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said.
Karim Sahib | AFP | Getty Images

Travel between Dubai and the rest of the world, or point-to-point traffic, has rebounded “incredibly strongly,” Griffiths said.
“Some of the visitors to Dubai actually are helping boost our point-to-point traffic numbers to more than 100% of pre-Covid levels,” he said.
The recovery in the transit market has been slower and stands at around 60% of 2019 levels, the press release said.
Some markets such as those in Southeast Asia and Australasia closed their borders for a period, but are starting to reopen now, he noted.
“So hopefully, during May, we will see rebounds in the Chinese travel market, further strengthening in Australasia and all the traditional markets that are very good for us for transfer traffic will be back to their former strength,” he said.
China is still holding on to its zero-Covid policy, and imposed strict restrictions to deal with outbreaks in Shanghai and Beijing in recent weeks.

Rules for travel

In terms of health and safety requirements for air travel, including testing and mask mandates on planes, Griffiths said they may soon ease further in Dubai.
“We’re not far away from a total relaxation,” he said, noting that vaccinated travelers to Dubai don’t need to be tested on arrival.
“We’re very anxious, obviously, to relax restrictions, but not until it’s safe to do so,” he added.
Separately, the CEO said it’s up to the government whether Dubai Airports will be listed publicly in an initial public offering.
“The Dubai government, I’m sure, in fullness of time will make a decision. And we will obviously embrace whatever decision that is with great enthusiasm,” he said.
Asked if the company is ready for an IPO, he said: “We are ready for anything.”

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China has signaled in recent weeks that it still wants to meet its growth target of 5.5% this year, even as lockdowns and other restrictions take a toll on businesses.
China’s Politburo meeting on April 29 sent a “strong signal that policymakers are committed to this year’s GDP target despite downside risks from COVID-19 disruptions and geopolitical tensions,” ANZ Research analysts wrote in a note on the same day.
China is likely to rack up more debt as it tries to meet its growth targets, according to market watchers.

Covid lockdowns have hit China’s economy, and the Asian giant might have to issue more debt to continue meeting its growth target.
Kevin Frayer | Getty Images News | Getty Images

China may have to issue more debt as it tries to keep growing in the face of Covid lockdowns that are stunting its economy.
The country has signaled in recent weeks that it still wants to meet its growth target of 5.5% this year.

China’s Politburo meeting on April 29 sent a “strong signal that policymakers are committed to this year’s GDP target despite downside risks from COVID-19 disruptions and geopolitical tensions,” ANZ Research analysts wrote in a note on the same day.

To attain the 5.5% target, China may be borrowing from the future and incur more debt.

ANZ Research analysts

Chinese state media on Friday reported details of that Politburo meeting, in which officials promised more support for the economy to meet the country’s economic growth target for the year. That support would include infrastructure investment, tax cuts and rebates, measures to boost consumption, and other relief measures for companies.
That’s as foreign investment banks are predicting growth will fall significantly below the 5.5% number, with manufacturing activity slumping in April.
That means China is likely to rack up more debt as it tries to meet its growth targets, according to market watchers.
“To attain the 5.5% target, China may be borrowing from the future and incur more debt,” said ANZ Research’s senior China economist, Betty Wang, and senior China strategist, Zhaopeng Xing.

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Andrew Tilton, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC last week that China is set to ramp up infrastructure spending.
From Beijing’s point of view, increasing such fiscal spending as well as relaxing debt restrictions would be more desirable than monetary easing, he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
However, one hindrance to the government’s efforts toward infrastructure investment would be the Covid-related restrictions that are indiscriminately being imposed everywhere, Tilton said.
“There are a lot of restrictions around the country even in some cases in places where there aren’t any Covid cases — more precautionary in nature,” he said. “So one of the obstacles to the infrastructure campaign is going to be keeping Covid restrictions targeted on just the areas where they’re most needed.”
One option for the government is to issue so-called local government special bonds, Tilton said.

Those are bonds that are issued by units set up by local and regional governments to fund public infrastructure projects.
In the beleaguered real estate market, the government has also been encouraging lenders to support developers, Tilton said.
Borrowing more to boost growth would be a step backward for Beijing, which has been trying to cut debt before the pandemic even began. The government has targeted the property sector aggressively by rolling out the “three red lines” policy, which is aimed at reining in developers after years of growth fueled by excessive debt. The policy places a limit on debt in relation to a firm’s cash flows, assets and capital levels.
However, that led to a debt crisis late last year as Evergrande and other developers started to default on their debt.

Shocks to business, GDP forecasts

Chinese President Xi Jinping last week called for an “all-out” effort to construct infrastructure, with the country struggling to keep its economy humming since the country’s most recent Covid outbreak began around two months ago.
Restrictions have been imposed in its two largest cities, Beijing and Shanghai, with stay-home orders slapped on millions of people and establishments shut down.
China’s zero-Covid restrictions have hit businesses hard. Nearly 60% of European businesses in the country said they were cutting 2022 revenue projections as a result of Covid controls, according to a survey late last month by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.
Among Chinese businesses, monthly surveys released in the last week showed sentiment among manufacturing and service businesses fell in April to the lowest since the initial shock of the pandemic in February 2020.

The Caixin services Purchasing Managers’ Index, a private survey which measures China’s manufacturing activity, showed a drop to 36.2 in April, according to data out last Thursday. That’s far below the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction.
The country’s zero-Covid policy and slowing economy have already sparked predictions from investment banks and other analysts that its growth will fall significantly below its target of 5.5% this year.
Forecasts are ranging from more than 3% to around 4.5%.
“Given the Covid outbreaks’ impact on consumption and industrial output in the first half of 2022, we expect 2022 GDP growth closer to 4.3%, assuming the economy can begin to recover before June, and then rebound,” said Swiss private bank Lombard Odier’s Chief Investment Officer Stephane Monier.
“If the economy continues to suffer from successive lockdown shocks for key urban areas, full-year growth would certainly fall below 4%,” he wrote in a Wednesday note.
— CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

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Kohl’s shareholders voted on Wednesday to reelect the company’s current slate of 13 board directors, as the retailer faced mounting pressure from activist Macellum Advisors for an overhaul.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, the major proxy advisory firms were split in their recommendations.
Kohl’s is still in the process of considering bids for its business.
“We aren’t going away,” Macellum’s CEO said.

The Kohl’s logo is displayed on the exterior of a Kohl’s store on January 24, 2022 in San Rafael, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Kohl’s shareholders voted to reelect the company’s current slate of 13 board directors, as the retailer faced mounting pressure from activists for an overhaul, Kohl’s announced Wednesday.
The annual meeting of Kohl’s shareholders took place as activist firm Macellum Advisors has been pushing for Kohl’s to revamp its slate of directors, arguing the company has underperformed in recent years compared with other retailers.

Macellum has contended that Kohl’s Chief Executive Officer Michelle Gass’ efforts, such as teaming up with beauty retailer Sephora or partnering with Amazon on a returns program, haven’t been enough.

In February, Macellum nominated 10 directors, including its chief executive officer, Jonathan Duskin. The activist has also been pushing for Kohl’s to sell itself and to offload some of its real estate and lease it back to tap into additional capital.
Kohl’s has been resistant to such sale-leaseback transactions, but the retailer did tap bankers at Goldman Sachs to evaluate bids. Kohl’s confirmed in March that it had received multiple preliminary buyout offers after rejecting a bid from Starboard-backed Acacia Research, at $64 per share, that was deemed to be too low. 
Kohl’s shares closed Tuesday at $49.39, compared with a 52-week high of $64.80. The stock was down more than 1% in early trading Wednesday.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, the major proxy advisory firms were split in their recommendations. Institutional Shareholder Services, or ISS, backed two of Macellum’s candidates, while Glass Lewis said shareholders would be best served by supporting Kohl’s current board.

This isn’t the first time Macellum has put pressure on Kohl’s, either. The two struck a deal in April 2021 to add two directors from a slate that a group of activists, which included Macellum, was pushing for. Kohl’s also appointed one independent director, with the activists’ backing.
Kohl’s board “remains focused on running a robust and intentional review of strategic alternatives,” said Chairman Peter Boneparth.
“While we have had differences with Macellum, this board is committed to serving the interests of all our shareholders,” he said.
And while Macellum didn’t win the vote, the activist firm says it won’t be staying silent.
“I think the vote was a referendum on a sale, and people who voted for the company bought the narrative that any changes of the board in the middle of this process had run the risk of disrupting the process,” Duskin told CNBC.
“The vote for the company was a vote for a sale of a business,” he said. “We aren’t going away.”
— CNBC’s Courtney Reagan contributed to this reporting.

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