Skilled through alternative routes (STAR) is a term to describe adults in the United States without bachelor's degrees who have work experience and skills that position them for transitions to higher-wage jobs.
[1] First defined in a 2020 research paper by Peter Q. Blair in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), STARs made up approximately 70 million workers in the U.S. economy as of 2021.
[6] STARs have gained skills through a variety of routes other than the four-year college degree, often including community college, workforce training, bootcamps, certificate programs, military service or on-the-job learning.
Research from December 2020 indicates that 30 million STARs have the skills to earn 70 percent more than their current wages.
[8] Proponents of supporting STARs argue that a more intentional approach to hiring, training, and recruiting STARs can help to increase the representation of non-white individuals in the workforce.