Type: Making the Case
Making the Case
Readiness
Credential As You Go is exploring how to transform the nation’s credentialing system to include incremental credentials to build a fairer system that recognizes and formally documents what learners know and can do. The initiative is establishing an evidence-based scale-up of incremental credentialing to support structural transformation of the U.S. legacy degree system that no longer adequately serves the needs of learners and employers. A range of stakeholders are needed to redesign the U.S. postsecondary system.
This readiness checklist will help stakeholder groups, especially governor’s offices, state systems of higher education and credential providers (e.g., colleges, universities, and third-party providers), to assess their readiness to participate in the national Credential As You Go movement.
- Policy. The entity has policy in the planning stage, in the approval process, approved but not implemented yet, or approved and implemented.
- Vision. The entity has a clear vision to transform its credentialing system, which is closely aligned to the Credential As You Go vision.
- State infrastructure. There is infrastructure at the state, coordinating board, or system level to establish a Credential As You Go state steering committee.
- Prototyping higher education institutions. There is a pool of ready higher education institutions within a postsecondary system or state, or within a multi-state network of institutions, from which to identify and select institutions to build incremental credentials and incremental pathways.
- Participating institutions are committed and able to establish committees on the campuses to spearhead their work. These committees would be composed of a cross-section of stakeholders (administrators, faculty, support services such as Registrar and academic advising, technology staff, continuing education or extended campus representatives, employer outreach and partnership units, etc.
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Research. The entity is interested and able to participate in the research component of Credential As You Go. The entity would be able to collect data needed by the Credential As You Go research plan and sign a Data Sharing Agreement.
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Commitment to equity. The entity is committed to increasing equity, in line with the Credential As You Go commitment.
- History of collaboration. The entity has a demonstrated history of collaborating successfully in state, regional, and/or national education reform initiatives. Credential As You Go’s research has found that there are from 15-25 innovation efforts underway in many states, and additional innovation efforts underway at colleges and universities.
- Funding: The entity has funds, means of support, or willingness to seek funding to engage in the Credential As You Go movement. Funds can support areas such as technical assistance from external experts, secure dedicated staff to lead this work, resources to sustain the work, partnership development, learner recruitment and supports, and travel funds to participate in professional development activities.
- Other readiness factors to support entity’s efforts.
Making the Case
Drivers for Change
DRIVERS OF CHANGE TO TRANSFORM THE NATION’S DEGREE-CENTRIC POSTSECONDARY SYSTEM TO AN INCREMENTAL CREDENTIAL SYSTEM
The U.S. postsecondary credentialing system is at a critical crossroad. Four key drivers are stimulating unheralded innovations to redesign our system: (1) a dated degree-centric system, (2) credential expansion, (3) equity, and (4) rapidly changing 21st Century workforce needs.
Mindful of these drivers, Credential As You Go is calling for a nationally recognized incremental credentialing system to capture and validate uncounted learning that enables individuals to be recognized for what they know and can do. An incremental system recognizes that many types of credentials (degrees, certificates, industry certifications, licenses, badges, microcredentials) may document an individual’s learning; and that credentials are awarded by many types of providers including community and technical colleges, four-year colleges and universities, third-party organizations, companies, military, and state licensing boards.
Although incremental credentialing is not new, it is not the design of the U.S. learn-and-work system. There are increasing calls to link the array of credentials of value —degree and non-degree — into an understandable, coherent system. This requires a redesign of credentialing systems across states and higher education institutions to reduce confusion, increase learning recognition, and integrate what people know and can do.
FOUR KEY DRIVERS OF CHANGE
Degree-centric System
The centuries-old four-tiered degree system (associate, baccalaureate, masters, doctorate/professional) is insurmountable for many and hinders those who do not complete any given tier. Some 39 million adults have some college experience but no degree, and another 81 million have no postsecondary experience (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2022; U.S. Census Bureau, 2021); together they represent 52 percent of the adult population. Put another way, about one out of six adults dropped or stopped out from college with no credential to show what they have accomplished. The role of credentialing is to seal learning into qualifications that are recognizable, transferable, and usable, so that individuals can gain and sustain employment and continue their education. But the current system treats individuals as if they have acquired no valuable knowledge or skills through prior college coursework, work, and life experiences. The result is a system that does not adequately serve the nation’s social and economic needs.
Credential Expansion
The U.S. credential landscape is increasingly confusing and chaotic. There are nearly one million unique credentials awarded from four types of credential providers: postsecondary educational institutions, massive open online course providers, nonacademic providers, and secondary schools (Credential Engine, 2021). The demand for new types of educational credentials has grown substantially in the last 5 years—especially since the start of the pandemic, driven in part by growing demand for certificate programs and alternative credential offerings (Gallagher, 2021). The number of open badges awarded, for example, nearly doubled between 2018 and 2020, from 24 million to 43 million (Gallagher, 2021). As the acceptance of new types of credentials has grown, a number of employers have become learning providers in their own right—moving beyond training employees or providing staff members with tuition assistance for higher education to also develop their own curricula and expand their public-facing credential offerings (Gallagher & Zanville, 2021).
Equity
Credentialing is a serious equity issue. About 48 percent of adults aged 25 years and older in the U.S. have a college degree; an additional 15 percent have some college but no degree. Degree completion by race-ethnicity reveals major disparities: 67 percent of Asian adults and 53 percent of White, non-Latinx adults have a college degree, compared to only 38 percent of African American adults and 30 percent of Latinx adults. African Americans are also the group with the highest percentage of adults who have some college and no degree (18 percent; U.S. Census Bureau, 2021), and they furthermore carry the highest student debt load among any racial group (Hanson, 2020). Individuals without a postsecondary degree are at a disadvantage to obtain living-wage earnings. A fair postsecondary education system is needed to capture uncounted learning and validate that learning to enable all individuals to be recognized for what they know and can do.
21st-Century Workforce
The nation’s workforce is markedly different than it was 40 years ago. While employers still need workers with industry-specific knowledge and skills (i.e., technical or hard skills), employers increasingly value 21st-century skills (i.e., human skills, power skills, soft skills). Some employers struggle to find workers with the knowledge or skills to enable their companies to remain competitive, because the specific knowledge and skills needed are often not well documented or credentialed. Additionally, some workers are finding that their knowledge and skills are no longer up to date and may even be obsolete as workforce demands keep changing.
The skills dilemma—what skills are needed, for which industry sectors and job levels, and who provides training for them—has important implications for workforce preparation and credentialing. Three findings in the literature are especially relevant to the call for an incremental credentialing system: (a) our system is underperforming in today’s fast-paced and changing world in which lifelong learning is essential, (b) employers are struggling to find workers with 21st-century skills, and (c) educational institutions are slow to change (Zaber et al., 2019). The latter finding is especially troublesome for higher education, as continued reliance on outdated curricula, instructional models, and credentialing systems limits institutions’ ability to meet the changing needs of the workforce (Zaber et al., 2019, p. 1).
REFERENCES
Credential Engine. (2021, February). Counting U.S. Postsecondary and Secondary Credentials – 2021 Report.https://credentialengine.org/counting-credentials-2021/
Gallagher, Sean. (2021, Dec 21). The Still-Evolving Future of University Credentials. Ed Surge News. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-12-21-the-still-evolving-future-of-university-credentials#:~:text=Employer%20acceptance%20of%20credentials%20earned,forward%20due%20to%20the%20pandemic
Gallagher, S. and Zanville, H. (2021, March 25). More Employers Are Awarding Credentials. Is A Parallel Higher Education System Emerging? Ed Surge News https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-03-25-more-employers-are-awarding-credentials-is-a-parallel-higher-education-system-emerging
Hanson, M. (2020, September 24). Student debt load by race. EducationData.org. https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-by-race
National Student Clearinghouse. (2019, October 30). Some college, no degree: A 2019 snapshot for the nation and 50 states. https://nscresearchcenter.org/some-college-no-degree-2019/ Research Report. (2019).
Reimagining the Workforce Development and Employment System for the 21st Century and Beyond. RAND Corporation.https://doi.org/10.7249/RR2768
U.S. Census Bureau (2021). Current Population Survey, 2021 Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC). Downloaded on March 4, 2022 from: http://www.census.gov/data/tables/2021/demo/educational-attainment/cps-detailed-tables.html.
Zaber, M., Karoly, L., Whipkey, K. (2019).A System That Works: How a New Workforce Development and Employment System Can Meet the Needs of Employers, Workers, and Other Stakeholders . RAND Corporation Research Brief 10074-RC https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10074.html