What share of Kauaʻi’s working population consists of STARs versus four-year degree holders?
Workforce Understory Episode: Episode Four — Mobility Through Lifelong Learning
Geography: Kauaʻi County
Topic: STARs, workforce composition, education requirements, and regional economic mobility
The takeaway
Among Kauaʻi County’s approximately 53,777 workers age 25 and older with earnings, 37,008 are STARs—people who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes rather than holding a four-year degree.
That represents approximately 69% of Kauaʻi’s working population.
The remaining 16,769 workers, or approximately 31%, hold a four-year degree.
Kauaʻi therefore has one of Hawaiʻi’s highest STAR shares. For every worker with a bachelor’s degree, there are more than two workers who developed their skills through alternative routes.
More than two out of every three Kauaʻi workers have built their skills without completing a four-year degree.
What this visualization shows
This visualization divides Kauaʻi County’s working population into two broad groups: workers who hold a four-year degree and workers classified as STARs.
STARs may have developed valuable skills through community college, occupational certificates, apprenticeships, military service, employer training, professional experience, or other routes outside the traditional bachelor’s-degree pathway.
The comparison shows that STARs are the clear majority of Kauaʻi’s workforce.
Approximately 37,008 workers are classified as STARs, compared with 16,769 workers holding four-year degrees. This means that systems centered primarily on bachelor’s-degree pathways would be designed around less than one-third of Kauaʻi’s working population.
The visualization describes educational attainment rather than workers’ full capabilities. Kauaʻi’s STAR population includes people with different credentials, occupations, levels of experience, earnings, and opportunities for advancement.
It also does not show whether workers are employed in roles that fully recognize their abilities or whether local employers require four-year degrees for jobs that could be performed successfully through experience and shorter-term training.
Why this matters
Kauaʻi’s workforce strategy must account for the reality that most workers have developed their skills outside the four-year-degree system.
Employers across the island already depend on STAR workers to support Hospitality, Construction, Transportation, Healthcare, Retail, public services, agriculture, and other essential parts of the local economy.
Yet the island’s relatively small and concentrated employer base may provide fewer destinations into which workers can advance.
Earlier Workforce Understory analysis showed that Kauaʻi has a limited supply of projected living-wage openings relative to the number of people seeking opportunity. That creates a particularly difficult challenge for a workforce in which nearly seven in ten workers are STARs.
Removing unnecessary degree requirements and expanding skills-based hiring could improve access to some existing jobs. Targeted training, credentials, and incumbent-worker advancement could help workers move into higher-paying positions within their current industries.
But these interventions depend on suitable destination jobs being available.
If Kauaʻi’s Anchor and Building industries remain small, training additional workers may not produce economic mobility at meaningful scale. Workers could gain new skills without finding local roles that reward them, potentially increasing pressure to relocate to Oʻahu or leave Hawaiʻi entirely.
Kauaʻi may therefore be an important test of what workforce investment can accomplish in a small regional economy. The island needs stronger worker pathways, but it may also need deliberate economic-development strategies that create and improve the jobs at the end of those pathways.
This evidence invites Kauaʻi to ask:
Can workforce investment create meaningful mobility when the local supply of living-wage destination jobs remains limited?
Evidence:
Questions this visualization helps answer
How many Kauaʻi workers are classified as STARs?
How many hold a four-year degree?
What percentage of Kauaʻi’s working population consists of STARs?
What percentage holds a bachelor’s degree or higher?
Are STARs or degree holders the majority of Kauaʻi’s workforce?
How many STAR workers are represented by the county’s 69% share?
How does Kauaʻi’s workforce composition compare with the statewide pattern?
How does it compare with Honolulu and the other Neighbor Island counties?
Why should Kauaʻi’s workforce system include pathways beyond the bachelor’s degree?
How many workers could potentially benefit from skills-based hiring and advancement?
Curiosity:
Questions this visualization raises
In which Kauaʻi industries and occupations are STAR workers concentrated?
Which industries are classified as Anchor, Building, Partial, or Limited for STAR mobility?
Does Kauaʻi have enough Building-industry capacity to create meaningful mobility at scale?
How many STAR-accessible living-wage openings exist on the island?
Which occupations provide living-wage earnings without requiring a four-year degree?
Are those opportunities available in sufficient numbers to serve a workforce that is 69% STARs?
Which industries employ many STAR workers but offer limited wage growth?
How many Kauaʻi STARs are underemployed or working below their skill level?
Which employers maintain bachelor’s-degree requirements that may not be necessary?
Could skills-based hiring expand access without requiring significant new job creation?
Which certificates, apprenticeships, or shorter-term training programs produce reliable wage gains?
Are local training programs aligned with actual employer demand?
How many workers could advance within their current workplaces?
Do small employers have enough internal positions to create meaningful career ladders?
Which sectors could expand to create additional living-wage destinations?
Could renewable energy, skilled trades, healthcare, technology-enabled work, agriculture, or aquaculture create new mobility pathways?
Can remote work connect Kauaʻi STARs with higher-paying jobs based elsewhere?
What broadband, workspace, training, or employer infrastructure would remote pathways require?
How do transportation and geographic distance affect access to jobs and training?
Are opportunities concentrated in particular parts of the island?
Do workers leave Kauaʻi because their skills cannot be used or rewarded locally?
How many STAR workers move to Honolulu or the continental United States for stronger opportunities?
How do STAR outcomes vary by race, gender, age, disability, income, and community?
What role could employer-supported training and prior-learning assessment play?
Which workforce interventions can succeed without broader industry growth?
Which interventions require economic-development investment to create additional jobs?
Is there a minimum level of sector and employer capacity needed for upskilling initiatives to produce reliable returns?
How should Kauaʻi balance investment in existing industries with efforts to diversify its economy?
What evidence would demonstrate that the island is creating more sustainable mobility for its majority-STAR workforce?
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