Congress is weighing the possibility of creating “Workforce Pell.” Those would be Pell Grants, not for college students, but for individuals who want to enroll in short-term programs aimed at credentialing them for immediate employment. The idea is attractive to those of us who believe that far too many young people are lured into college programs that put them into debt and provide little in the way of a real education. But “Workforce Pell” would come with some problems of its own, some of which are spelled out in an important new report from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Burningglass Institute. The report, Holding New Credentials Accountable for Outcomes: We Need Evidence-Based Funding Models, strongly suggests that most of the programs that Workforce Pell would underwrite are of little value to those who enroll.
Holding New Credentials reveals an explosion of new credentials on offer: some 1.1 million, a ten percent increase in the last year. This is a huge oversupply—a gold rush—by entrepreneurs hoping to capitalize on the steep decline in public confidence in the degrees offered by colleges and universities. It is no surprise that many of these new short-term credentials are of little or no worth. It takes time to develop a credential that marries market needs to student aptitude and ambition. The rapid growth in new programs is bound to result in a fairly high number of misfires.
The AEI report focuses on measurable results: increased wages for the newly credentialed, job placement, and promotion. That’s very helpful information to have, especially as it shows that by those measures, the new credentials benefit a relatively small minority of the people who attain them. “Only about 12 percent of credentials deliver significant wage gains.”
But that doesn’t mean the programs are worthless.
First, the short-term programs in which students enroll may offer “credentials” as an outcome, but they are really more about conferring skills. The skills in question are typically narrowly focused and may or may not fit the needs of a student’s current employer or the industries that are currently hiring. The skills may not fit the student’s current employer, but still might have longer-term career benefits, and they may have other rewards for the people who are attempting to master them. If I decide to take a program to acquire basic Spanish or Chinese, it might have no bearing on my current work or any job that I apply for in the future, but it could enhance my life in other ways. In short, not every program is a credentialing service, and those that are may have attractions beyond the marketplace.
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But are those reasons for the federal government to subsidize the programs via “Workforce Pell?”
Second, the marketplace ruthlessly rewards those who are most determined, ambitious, and accomplished. It isn’t really a surprise that only 12 percent of those who finish these short-term non-college programs reap significant short-term rewards in salary, or similar gains in job placement and promotion. The eager achievers rise to the top. Those who mistakenly believed that getting a “credential” would do the job all by itself learned that more would be needed.
Third, even where the programs are marketed as useful job credentials, they are often best seen as rungs on a ladder. The student who hopes to climb had best not stop on the first rung. That doesn’t mean creating a whole college curriculum composed of such courses, but it means putting together a sequence that shows employers a coherent plan and the fortitude to carry it through. I would wager that the success stories are heavily weighted to those who have figured this out.
AEI and Burningglass list several programs that are notably successful in advancing the careers of those who pursue them. Degreed and Cornerstone stand out, and certifications such as Chartered Financial Analyst and Occupational Safety and Health Administration certification are strong bets for the college-averse. But I am not trying to steer anyone to a particular program. Rather, I would counsel Congress to be wary of creating another expensive boondoggle. Workplace Pell could easily become an incentive for young people to pursue frivolous programs that will provide them with neither useful workforce skills nor the foundation for further learning. AEI and Burningglass recognize that danger and propose to counter it by setting “quality standards” that differ from “traditional accreditation regimes” by focusing on the earnings and other easily measured results of those who gain these credentials.
Creating a new regulatory system to backstop a new entitlement does strike me as educational progress. I think we should let the marketplace figure this out. Useless credentials may always be with us, but we don’t need to water and fertilize them.
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Image by Connor Gan on Unsplash
