Interesting Reads This Week

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It is Valentine’s Day, and here on the Wasatch Front nature seems to think it is already spring. But what did I read this week, and how did those readings shape my thinking?

There are moments in higher education when the temperature drops. Not catastrophically. Not dramatically. Just enough for the shine to fade and the conversation to shift from expansion to evaluation.

This week’s reading feel like one of those moments. Microcredentials are moving from promise to requiring proof. Online enrollment strategies are revealing operational cracks. Skepticism about online learning is resurfacing at governing boards, even as the data show more nuance than the rhetoric suggests.

Taken together, these pieces point to something deeper than isolated challenges. Higher education may be entering a phase where enthusiasm is no longer enough. The question is no longer whether innovations sound compelling, but whether they can withstand scrutiny.

The bloom is off the rose

The bloom may not be entirely off the rose for microcredentials, but institutional enthusiasm is clearly cooling. Two recent reports suggest that the initial wave of optimism is giving way to scrutiny — financial, operational, and labor-market based.

Redefining return, and still falling short

The Burning Glass Institute assembled a dataset linking the career histories of 65 million Americans to more than 20,000 credentials across 2,056 providers. Using this Credential Value Index, they push back on approaches that measure return on investment for microcredentials solely in terms of immediate earnings, as is the case with Workforce Pell and some state accountability frameworks.

Rather than asking only whether credentials raise pay in the near term, Burning Glass examines whether microcredentials enable promotions or transitions into higher-opportunity occupations over time.

Based on analyses of data in their merged dataset, they classify microcredentials into four categories: Launchpads, Promotion Catalysts, Lateral Moves, and Dead Ends. Even under this broader definition of value, roughly two-thirds still fail to deliver measurable wage or mobility returns.

Launchpads: credentials that help earners transition into new careers with substantial wage gains (6% of credentials)

Promotion Catalysts: credentials that facilitate upward movement within the same field (8% of credentials)

Lateral Moves: credentials that help workers shift into different occupations with higher long-term opportunity, even if immediate wage gains are modest (17% of credentials)

Dead-End Credentials: credentials that show little measurable wage or mobility impact (69% of credentials)

The second part of Burning Glass’s analysis asks a different question: how do wages evolve over time for earners relative to comparable peers? Instead of focusing only on immediate post-credential earnings, the authors track wage trajectories relative to a matched comparison group over a five-year period.

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