The Credential Explosion

The question 0:01

If there are now well over a million credentials on offer in one country alone, how is a learner, or an employer, supposed to know which ones mean anything?

This is WAC Signal, from the World Assessment Council. Evidence and ideas for the changing world of learning.

Episode six. The credential explosion.

The signal 0:32

Credential Engine identified one million, seventy-six thousand, three hundred and fifty-eight unique credentials in the United States in its 2022 report, across eighteen categories. Its 2025 count found one million, eight hundred and fifty thousand and thirty-four, offered by one hundred and thirty-four thousand, four hundred and ninety-one providers.

Most of them are not degrees. Of the 2025 total, more than one million are badges. Certifications, which include a third-party proficiency test, number six thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two.

Governments are paying for this market. France's personal training account, the Compte Personnel de Formation, has spent about two billion euros a year since 2023. A July 2026 report for the French Senate's finance committee found that in 2025 only seventeen point four percent of training records targeted qualifications in the national professional register, while thirty-eight point one percent were non-certifying, including driving licenses. Only fifty-seven percent of enrollees validated their training.

So the supply of credentials has outgrown anyone's ability to judge them. The question is which ones are worth a learner's time and money, and why the pile keeps growing.

The evidence 2:09

Start with why it grows. Part of the answer is employers. Alicia Sasser Modestino, Daniel Shoag and Joshua Ballance found, in online postings for middle-skill occupations, that employers raised education and experience requirements within the same occupations when more job seekers were available, even within the same firm and job title. They estimate that the rise in job seekers accounts for roughly thirty percent of the increase in skill requirements between 2007 and 2010.

The Harvard Business School, Accenture and Grads of Life study Dismissed by Degrees found that in 2015, sixty-seven percent of production supervisor postings asked for a college degree, while only sixteen percent of employed production supervisors had one. The authors estimated that more than six million jobs were at risk of degree inflation, and their advice was blunt, quote. Companies should be extraordinarily cautious before raising credential requirements for middle-skill positions.

The pattern is not only American. In Europe, Cedefop's survey, as summarized by McGuinness and colleagues, found that seventy-five point six percent of tertiary graduates said a degree was needed to get their job, but seventy-one point six percent said one was needed to do it. The authors read that difference as a sign of credentialism.

And credentials are a weak guide to what people can do. The OECD's Survey of Adult Skills tested about one hundred and sixty thousand adults in thirty-one countries and economies. In numeracy, the top quarter of high school graduates outscored the bottom quarter of tertiary graduates in every country. Finnish adults whose education ended at high school averaged two hundred and eighty-eight points in literacy, more than twenty-five points above tertiary-educated adults in Chile, Israel, Lithuania and Poland.

Now, which credentials pay? Some do, and the field matters. Using California Community College records linked to earnings, Ann Huff Stevens and colleagues estimated returns to career-technical certificates and degrees of fourteen to forty-five percent, with the largest gains in health care.

An OECD review of micro-credentials cites US analysis showing that more than ninety percent of certificate programs in transportation, heavy industrial technologies and nursing let learners recover their costs within five years. More than seventy-five percent of programs in fields such as cosmetology showed no statistically significant return.

Length matters too. The OECD found that evidence on labor market outcomes is still limited, that only some targeted short credentials significantly raise employment or wages, and that longer programs tend to deliver larger benefits. In Singapore, adults completing a full Workforce Skills Qualification saw real wages rise five point eight percent, against zero point eight percent for those receiving a statement of attainment for individual modules.

And short credentials can help people who already have degrees. Statistics Canada research cited by the OECD found that among bachelor's degree holders who completed a short credential, the share working in low value-added service industries fell from twenty-two point one percent to nine point nine percent within two years.

The tension 6:20

Much of the evidence offered by providers is not independent. Google, for example, reports that seventy-five percent of those completing a Google Career Certificate report a positive career outcome within six months. The OECD notes that without data on attrition, or on completers versus non-completers, figures like that cannot establish the payoff.

And measurement is a broader problem. The OECD observes that neither the EU Labour Force Survey nor the Adult Education Survey collects information on non-degree credential attainment.

Completion is a second problem. Justin Reich and José Ruipérez-Valiente analyzed twelve point six seven million registrations in HarvardX and MITx courses on edX. Completion among all participants fell from five point nine one percent in 2014-15 to three point one three percent in 2017-18. Among learners who said they intended to complete, it was fifteen point four two percent, and among those who paid for a verified certificate, forty-six point zero two percent.

Then there is a puzzle about what a credential actually does. In a large randomized experiment, Susan Athey and Emil Palikot of Stanford encouraged online certificate earners without degrees in developing countries to share their credentials on LinkedIn. New employment rose six percent, with gains concentrated among those with weak baseline employability.

The Skills Gap Report draws the lesson that signaling and visibility may matter as much as the learning itself. That is good news for learners who can show what they have done. It is uncomfortable news for anyone who assumed the credential and the skill were the same thing.

The implication 8:26

Adding more credentials does not automatically close a skills gap. The Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation found that fifty-two percent of US bachelor's graduates are underemployed a year after graduating, and forty-five percent are still underemployed a decade later. When half of new degree holders work in jobs that do not require their degree, more general credentials are unlikely to be the fix.

For learners, the evidence points to three questions before enrolling. What field is it in? Does it lead to a full, recognized qualification, or only a certificate for one module? And has anyone outside the provider measured what happens to people who complete it?

The WAC view 9:22

In our Skills Gap Report, we conclude that the fastest-growing parts of the training market, short credentials and online learning, are the least rigorously tested. The designs with the strongest evidence train for specific, in-demand occupations, screen and support participants, certify transferable skills, and connect directly to employers.

So for providers and universities, we would say this. Completion and visibility, not enrollment, drive value. Build structured, cohort-based pathways to recognized credentials, and help learners show verified skills to employers. Programs that produce assessed work and portable, machine-readable records will be easier to hire from.

For employers, be wary of raising credential requirements just because the market lets you. Part of what looks like rising skill demand is upcredentialing in a slack market.

And for governments funding training accounts, tie entitlements to quality-assured providers, guidance and in-demand qualifications, and plan for fraud controls from the start. France's experience shows what a market with weak quality control will supply.

What to watch 10:45

One. What the returns to short credentials are outside the United States. Major European surveys do not collect data on non-degree credential attainment.

Two. Whether France's co-payment and caps on its training accounts, introduced since 2024, shift spending toward recognized qualifications.

Three. Hires, not postings. Whether the share of people hired without a degree into roles that once required one actually rises, which would show that selection reform has caught up with policy.

The sources for every figure in this episode are listed on the episode page, along with the full Skills Gap Report 2025, at worldassessmentcouncil.org.

WAC Signal is produced by the World Assessment Council, with AI-assisted research and AI voices, and every claim is checked against its source before publication.

This has been WAC Signal. Evidence and ideas for the changing world of learning.