race and gender, but in the context of skill, the two relate in the context of educational opportunities and resources. In nationwide studies, skill supply can often be incorrectly measured because people assume that any standard level of educational achievement (such as high school graduate) should provide a common standard for skill; however, minorities that only have access to local, less academically rigorous schools are likely to be less skilled than whites that are at the same standard educational level. Furthermore, differences in wages between racial groups can be attributed to differences in skill that began during early education. According to human capital theory, there is a positive correlation between a worker's skill supply and their wage earnings. The more skilled the worker and the better they are at their job, the more they will get paid. There is also a correlation between skill and education, suggesting that the more educated a worker is, the more skilled they will be. Therefore, there will be wage gaps between racial groups because of the differences in education and therefore, skill. Also concerning the role of education in acquiring skills, people are now required to receive more education and earn higher degrees in order to get jobs than they have in the past. For example, many nurses are now required to have a bachelor's degree in nursing in order to work, which increases the enrollment in nursing courses at four-year colleges, as well as forcing many to return to school in order to fulfill the requirements. They have even opened programs for people who are already registered nurses, so that they can earn bachelor's degrees. Not only are workers having to earn more degrees to find jobs than before, but with the increasing role of new technology in the workplace, workers must be more specialized in their skills as well. We are entering an age of hyper-specialization, meaning that companies are now more frequently subdividing labor into complex networks of individual, specialized tasks. Because employers are looking for more specialized skill sets, people are required to develop more highly specialized skills. This makes it more difficult to find jobs, especially for older workers who are not as familiar with modern technology and specializing in specific skills. In the past, people have been able to have a more general skill set that encompasses many aspects of a business, but now they must be highly