An Rx for an Ailing Postsecondary Education System: Credential As You Go

Nan Travers, Director, Center for Leadership in Credentialing Learning, SUNY Empire State College

Larry Good, President & CEO, Corporation for a Skilled Workforce

Holly Zanville, Strategy Director Lumina Foundation

The pandemic has brought to life the fact that not only do we have a deadly virus running rampant through our nation — and the world — but the U.S. postsecondary system is ailing, as well. It was ailing before the pandemic, and the challenges facing postsecondary education have grown as the coronavirus has disrupted both delivery and economic models. We have a chance to redesign our system — to make it operate better for students, employers, institutions, and policymakers. One Rx for change is “credential as you go.”

Symptoms of an ailing credentialing system. Credentials are essential in our learn-and work ecosystem. Folks need verification and recognition of what they know and can do. Credentials (the “seals of learning” that make learning recognizable, transferrable, and usable) are typically used to gain and sustain employment. Yet, credential attainment in the U.S. is in crisis. Even before the pandemic, too many students were unable to complete degrees (they stopped or dropped out of educational programs for work, family, and personal reasons), and their learning (knowledge and accomplishments) has gone unrecognized and undocumented.

A key reason for this problem is the very structure of our traditional postsecondary system. Our four-tiered degree-based system (associate, bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate) is punitive to anyone who does not complete. The belief that a formal degree is the only way to be recognized for postsecondary knowledge and work readiness is ingrained into our culture. This is not helpful to the millions of Americans who have college-level learning but have not completed a degree.

The length of two- and four-year degrees can be unachievable for many students, especially when competing life circumstances, such as work and family, must take priority, leaving many adults without recognized credentials. When students have some college but no degree, the learning is rarely bundled into a recognizable credential, thus giving the learning less worth, and it is usually disregarded. In contrast, when the same learning is sealed within a credential, it becomes transferrable and is considered when obtaining jobs and promotions. In addition, non-institutional college-level learning, acquired through work and experiences, is frequently not recognized at all. For most students, ‘stepping-out’ of programs interrupts or ends credential attainment and leaves individuals with a stigma of being a failure, dropout, or non-completer. The system treats individuals without postsecondary credentials as though they do not have knowledge and skills, even if they have acquired substantial competencies through work and life experiences — as well as from previous coursework.

Our ailing system impacts different population groups differently. Prior to the pandemic, the data told the bleak story about credential completion for so many students:

· 53% of American adults have less than a college credential. According to the 2019 U.S. Census data, 117 million American adults (age 25 and older) lack this essential employability device.

· About 1/3 of the un-degreed adult population (36 million people) has attempted some college but did not complete a degree.

· Higher education credential attainment data consistently show discrepancies by race. Of the 47% of adults who have higher education credentials, 72% are White, 10% are Black, and 9% are Latinx. About half of White adults have postsecondary credentials, while only about a third of Blacks or Latinx adults have equivalent credentials.

· In addition, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce reports that when enrolling in higher education, “Black, Latino, low-income, and older students are more likely to be enrolled in certificate or associate degree programs than in bachelor’s degree programs,” increasing the gap in earning power. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, drops in enrollments during the pandemic have hit the hardest for community colleges (22.7%).

The racial gaps in higher education attainment is an equity issue, and result in lower outcomes across the board, including income, poorer health, and lower employment, impacting the economy of this country and the socioeconomic well-being of its people.

The current “four types of degrees” credentialing system leaves the 117 million adults with less than a postsecondary credential with no good way to communicate their skills to employers. Many, if not most workers without degrees possess considerable skills, whether acquired in a college experience that did not result in a degree or informally through work and life experiences.

Our systems are even weaker in the pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic has weakened an already inefficient system. Soaring unemployment has left millions with greater needs to upskill and reskill to remain or re-become employed. Many positions, especially in hospitality, retail, construction, transportation, and warehousing, which often do not require as much education, have been hit the hardest with layoffs and closures. Because many of those workers lack any type of degree, their ability to transition into a new job or career is much harder.

The value of informal or undocumented learning becomes even harder to convey for students leaving their educational programs. The National Student Clearinghouse reports that fall 2020 postsecondary enrollments, since Covid-19, are down overall 3%, with undergraduate enrollment down 4%. The largest declines are with first-time students, down 16.1% nationwide (22.7% at community colleges). This translates to about 400,000 additional students (based on a 19.6 million enrollment projection) who were engaged but now have stepped away from their education without a credential due to Covid-19 stresses. These impacts have hit students of color more than their white counterparts, with 25% of Latinx and 7% of Black students but only 2% of White students indicating that they plan to take fewer courses due to the pandemic.

Inoculating the postsecondary system with the credential-as-you-go “vaccine.” The current context provides a unique opportunity to address the critical need for system redesign: we have an ailing system but there is a treatment. The proposed Rx is a nationally recognized transferrable incremental credential system. It will increase the number of high-quality, post-high school credentials that lead to further education and employment. Learning that is currently uncounted will be captured and validated, enabling individuals to be recognized for what they know and can do as they acquire it. Incremental credentialing will provide pathways for learners to continue their education, increasing their ability to gain higher credentials and better employment.

The good news is the vaccine is in testing/developments stages. Phase I of Credential As You Go, funded by Lumina Foundation, has been exploring the feasibility of a nationally recognized transferrable incremental credentialing pathway system for the past year, and the concept has been in development for several years as part of the prior Credit When It’s Due initiative (focus on reverse transfer associate degrees) and Connecting Credentials (emphasis on portability and interconnectivity of all credentials).

The current work, led by Empire State College SUNY, has brought us this far:

· Researched some 90 system-level projects across 41 states that are serving students better and capturing what they know.

· Conducted initial pilots within SUNY, with two community colleges and one four-year comprehensive college to develop and test emerging models (proof of concept).

· Sought continuous feedback from top national leaders across the country through an advisory board, interviews, and a symposium.

Three key outcomes from Phase I of this work include:

· A goal and recommendation that postsecondary education systems need to create and increase the number of transparent, transferable, incremental credentials that capture all learning (internal and external to institutions) with clearly articulated, verified competencies linked to employment opportunities, while decreasing student debt load and the overall cost of postsecondary education.

· A faculty-developed model of transferrable incremental credentials that serve as blueprints for further testing, revision, and dissemination.

· Endorsement from top national leaders on the goal and model with recommendations to move the work to rapid prototyping across state-level systems.

Next steps. Please join us for a two-part webinar series to learn more about the importance of incremental credentialing in education and economic recovery: December 8 from 3–4 p.m. EST, Overview — Incremental Credentialing: Credential As You Go; and January 12 from 3–4 p.m. EST, a deeper dive into the issues and trends at Incremental Credentialing: Expanding Perspectives. Incremental Credentialing Registration.