In my experience, however, a degree is very helpful to working in HE, for several reasons.

1) It shows you have an interest in, and an aptitude for, the central service/product on offer by the university or college you are applying to – education is at the core of their business and their values, and you would be best placed if you can demonstrate the role it has had in your life as well.

2) Higher education is an increasingly complex and dynamic industry, and advanced studies lend themselves to the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills that are valued in that kind of environment.  Having a degree doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be a flexible, adaptable, pro-active employee, but it may show that you have a pre-disposition towards this.

3) Working with others who have advanced degrees and/or who are at the top of their field – you won’t automatically be able to get the respect you deserve from a fellow staff member just because you’ve got some letters behind your name, but when you’re working in a place that places a great deal of importance on teaching and research, you may find it easier if you know your quantitative from qualitative evidence, and are able to demonstrate this tangibly not only from your professional working history, but also from having taken appropriate courses at some stage in your career.

All of this will of course depend to a certain extent the role that you have as well as your relationship with your peers and of course the institutional culture where you work.  But in my experience, you will likely find it easier to get settled in a new role if you have had some prior experience of university-level study and how a university organizes itself.  And certainly as a hiring manager, with all else being equal, I would certainly prioritise an applicant or a candidate for promotion who showed a continuing interest in their own personal and/or professional education, and would certainly encourage him or her to take courses at the institution.

Another option to consider is joining professional networks and memberships.  Most professionals working in higher education (on either the academic or administrative side) hold multiple memberships of relevant professional organisations, which are also selective and often also require studies at an appropriate level in order to gain membership.

There may be a “degree” of academic snobbery at work here, in that members of the academy expect that others in the organisation should have achieved a similar standard of education. But when you think about it in terms of an institution’s brand values and mission in society, what does it say if they conclude a degree isn’t important to success?

What does this have to do with higher education? The debate about how the education system fails to provide students with soft skills and how little it does to prepare them for real-life challenges once they embark on a career has been going on for decades. The argument that higher education modules need to escape the stereotypical classroom learning model and discover more connections with the real world couldn’t be more relevant. Employers are complaining that college graduates, who are undoubtedly bright people, have difficulties grasping the practical issues of work and adapting to workplace requirements. These graduates are just used to different ways of thinking – more academic than practical – and they definitely need, and do indeed take, their time to adjust.

This is the challenge that enterprise modules at universities aim to tackle. They are designed to teach students those all-important transferable skills that sadly tend to be overlooked while at university, yet constitute essential requirements for any career: communication, teamwork, public speaking, problem solving, leadership, creative thinking, and business acumen. In other words, enterprise modules aim to bridge the gap between academia and the workplace. My university has started to realise the importance of these classes and has introduced enterprise modules across different degree disciplines, from business to sports and life sciences. By learning and practicing how to write effective business plans, overcome challenges, solve day-to-day problems, and pitch their ideas, students develop the soft skills that will allow them to be successful outside academia and will prepare them for a range of careers beyond graduation.