Too Many Credentials, Not Enough Value. Let’s Change That.

Postsecondary education is at a crossroads.

Most Americans still believe in the idea of education as a path to opportunity, but new research from the Lumina Foundation and Gallup indicates that faith in the system is fraying. Postsecondary education is saturated with credentials, but many of those credentials don’t deliver.

Learners are doing the math: If a credential is too expensive, takes too long to earn, or doesn’t lead to a good job, it’s not worth it. And right now, too many credentials—whether short-term certificates or traditional degrees—are failing on all three fronts. Ultimately, these are credentials without value.

Demand for short-term, lower-cost options is surging. At the same time, research from the ECMC Foundation indicates that teenagers are bringing different expectations for what they want out of college and don’t see a four-year degree as the only path. These shifts are colliding with structural instability caused by factors such as labor market churn, the rapid rise of generative AI, declining enrollments, and growing political scrutiny of educational programs and policies. The threat to the system is existential—not just because higher education is under attack, but because it is increasingly out of sync with the people and the purpose it aims to serve.

To reclaim its promise, postsecondary education must focus on what matters most: the skills learners gain, the value credentials deliver, and the opportunities those credentials unlock.

Focusing on What Drives Economic Mobility

At Jobs for the Future (JFF), we believe credentials have value when they lead to quality jobs—which we define as jobs that not only offer competitive pay and good benefits but also provide workers with stability, opportunities for learning and career growth, and safe, supportive, and engaging work environments. And credentials of value don’t just connect learners to a single job—they power economic mobility and career advancement across lifetimes. To maximize this potential, postsecondary programs must be opportunities for learners to build packages of transferable skills sought by employers.

To realize this vision, we must flip the system from one centered on attaining any credential to a system centered on what truly drives economic mobility. Such a system would be based on three basic principles:

• Skills are the currency. They are what employers seek and what learners build.
• Credentials are trustworthy containers of skills. They must reliably signal skills that matter.
• Economic mobility is the outcome. Credentials of value must connect to quality jobs and enable movement through a career.

We need credentials that move with people, open doors, and carry weight across a lifetime. We need credentials of value.

An Expanded Vision of Credentials of Value

Organizations like Lumina Foundation and the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) have defined “credentials of value” as credentials one that lead to real economic mobility with measurable returns in the labor market. In other words, credentials of value are those that are transparent and accessible and lead to economic advancement.

We believe the definition must evolve so that credentials of value are understood to be those that:

• Reflect skills that transfer and stretch, not just qualify someone for one job.
• Are recognized and trusted by learners and employers alike.
• Are designed with purpose and not simply awarded for time spent but built to signal real potential.

Our analysis of the skills landscape shows a clear pattern: The highest-value skills aren’t always the ones that are the most technical or rare—they’re the ones that are the most transferable and enduring. For example, the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2023 report offered these findings:

• Creative thinking became the single fastest-growing skill between 2020 and 2023, while data analysis moved from being a niche skill to one that is highly transferable.
• Demand for qualities like resilience, empathy, adaptability, and a willingness to collaborate—long sidelined as “soft” skills—is growing.
• Manual, routine, and narrowly technical skills are declining in value, even in sectors where they’re still common.

These trends are further solidifying as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform the nature of work across the economy. Employers are hiring for what people can carry with them throughout their careers, not just what they know today. But credential programs haven’t caught up. Many still reflect static knowledge, not transferable skills. Employers use credentials as proxies for job readiness, but too often, credentials don’t reflect the skills that matter. We need to fix this disconnect by building and modifying credentials so that they can be trusted to truly reflect dynamic skills people need to get hired today and achieve career advancement and economic mobility in the future.

JFF’s Vision

We need a system that designs, identifies, and promotes credentials of value, anchored in skills and built for lifelong learning journeys. We need a system that recognizes that not all credentials have value and moves intentionally away from those that don’t.

At this critical inflection moment, JFF is mobilizing to focus on realigning systems around credentials of value and support the following shifts:

• From credentials that reflect only static, specialized knowledge to those that demonstrate dynamic, transferable skills aligned with employer needs
• From unclear outcomes to transparent information about employment results
• From learning experiences that are designed without quality jobs in mind to those that integrate career planning and work-based learning
• From outdated curriculum development practices to approaches that keep pace with evolving skill needs
• From policies that place value only on time spent in a classroom to accelerated pathways practices that count learning wherever it happens

With more than 40 years of experience, JFF is leading the field through this transformation. We help leaders of state systems and postsecondary institutions define credentials of value and build stackable, skills-first programs. We partner with national employers to prototype verifiable credentials that better reflect transferable skills. Our work on credentials of value builds on lessons learned from the systems-level change driven by JFF’s postsecondary and Pathways to Prosperity networks that align education, workforce, and employer efforts and our unique insight into all aspects of the learning and workforce system.

Big moves across practice, policy, and technology are needed to make our vision a reality. JFF is bringing together postsecondary system leaders and partners across the ecosystem to dramatically accelerate work to ensure that credentials are rooted in dynamic skills. Together, we will:

• Validate and elevate credentials aligned to quality jobs, using labor market data and transparent skill signals to clarify what each credential delivers—for learners, employers, and systems.
• Audit and address low-value credentials, identifying whether redesign, modularization, or retirement is needed—and prioritize credentials that actually deliver economic mobility.
• Prototype next-generation credential formats that are shorter, stackable, and built to signal transferable capacity—not just job-readiness for today, but long-term potential in an AI-transformed economy.
• Establish new mechanisms to define and signal value, supporting learners to earn credentials that will help them meet their goals, adapt to shifting market demands, and lead to upward mobility.