Gov. Josh Shapiro quickly fulfilled one of his campaign promises Wednesday, just a day after his inauguration. His first executive order decrees that a four-year college degree is not a prerequisite for 92% of the 72,000 jobs under the executive branch of the state government.

The order widely was portrayed as “opening” thousands of those jobs to Pennsylvanians without degrees — 70% of the working-age population.

But the vast majority of state jobs already did not require, and never required, a college degree. According to the state government’s data, only 135 of the 2,600 job titles within the executive branch include a bachelor’s degree as a basic requirement. And for 101 of those 135 job titles, managers are allowed to accept an equivalent amount of experience and training in lieu of a degree.

That reduces to just 34 the number of job titles for which applicants must have degrees. And those often require professional licenses, as for engineers, lawyers, physicians, nurses and counselors, that in turn require degrees.

Pennsylvania’s government is, in effect, a giant service business. The workers who deliver those valuable services, from PennDOT equipment operators to clerks, have skills that do not depend upon college educations.

The order could further diminish the number of state positions that require degrees, because it mandates a review of job qualifications for all of those posts.

And, it directs managers to give greater consideration to work experience than to education alone.

Perhaps the greatest impact that the order will have is in public perception of the state’s job requirements. As Lt. Gov. Austin Davis pointed out, many Pennsylvanians may perceive that they need a college degree to apply successfully for a state job, even when a degree isn’t necessary.

That’s important not only for applicants but for the state government. Like other major employers, it has hundreds of vacant positions.

People interested in working for the state government — regardless of whether they have a degree — can search available jobs at

www.employment.pa.gov.

— Scranton Times-Tribune