Credentialism and educational inflation are any of a number of related processes involving increased demands for formal educational qualifications, and the devaluation of these qualifications. In Western society, China, and India, there has been increasing reliance on formal qualifications or certification for jobs. This process has, in turn, led to credential inflation (also known as credential creep, academic inflation, or degree inflation), the process of

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduct ...

of the minimum credentials required for a given job and the simultaneous devaluation of the value of diplomas and degrees. These trends are also associated with

grade inflation Grade inflation (also known as grading leniency) is the awarding of higher grades than students deserve, which yields a higher average grade given to students. The term is also used to describe the tendency to award progressively higher academic ...

, a tendency to award progressively higher academic grades for work that would have received lower grades in the past. There are some occupations that used to require a high school diploma, such as construction supervisors, loans officers, insurance clerks, and executive assistants, that are increasingly requiring a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to si ...

. Some jobs that formerly required candidates to have a bachelor's degree, such as becoming a director in the federal government, tutoring students, or being a history tour guide in a historic site, now require a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

. Some jobs that used to require a master's degree, such as junior scientific researcher positions and

sessional lecturer Sessional lecturer or sessional instructor are contract faculty who hold full- or part-time teaching positions and may perform administrative duties but have no research responsibilities. Sessionals hold short-term contracts, typically running ...

jobs, now require a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

. Also, some jobs that formerly required only a PhD, such as university professor positions, are increasingly requiring one or more postdoctoral fellowship appointments. Often increased requirements are simply a way to reduce the number of applicants to a position. The increasingly global nature of competitions for high-level positions may also be another cause of credential creep.

Credentialism and professionalization

Credentialism is a reliance on formal qualifications or certifications to determine whether someone is permitted to undertake a task, speak as an expert or work in a certain field. It has also been defined as "excessive reliance on credentials, especially academic degrees, in determining hiring or promotion policies." Credentialism occurs where the credentials for a job or a position are upgraded, even though there is no skill change that makes this increase necessary. Professionalization is the social process by which any

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exc ...

or occupation is transformed into a true "

profession A profession is a field of work that has been successfully '' professionalized''. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, '' professionals'', who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted b ...

of the highest integrity and competence." This process tends to involve establishing acceptable qualifications, a professional body or association to oversee the conduct of members of the

and some degree of demarcation of the qualified from unqualified amateurs. This creates "a hierarchical divide between the knowledge-authorities in the professions and a deferential citizenry." This demarcation is often termed " occupational closure", as it means that the

then becomes closed to entry from outsiders, amateurs and the unqualified: a stratified occupation "defined by professional demarcation and grade."

Causes

Knowledge economy

The developed world has transitioned from an agricultural economy (pre-1760s) to an industrial economy (1760s - 1900s) to a knowledge economy (late 1900s - present) due to increases in

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed enti ...

. This latest stage is marked by technological advancement and global competition to produce new products and research. The shift to a knowledge economy, a term coined by Peter Drucker, has led to a decrease in the demand for physical labor (such as that seen during the Industrial Age) and an increase in the demand for intellect. This has caused a multitude of problems to arise. Economists from the

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the United States' central bank. Missouri is the only state to have two main Federal Reserve Banks (Ka ...

, who categorized jobs as being either routine cognitive, routine manual, nonroutine cognitive or nonroutine manual, have examined a 30 million increase in the number of nonroutine cognitive jobs over the past 30 years, making it the most common job type. These nonroutine cognitive jobs, according to researchers, require "high intellectual skill." This can be rather difficult to measure in potential employees. Additionally, production outputs differ amongst labor types. The results of manual labor are tangible, whereas the results of knowledge labor are not. Management consultant Fred Nickols identifies an issue with this: Decreased visibility in the workplace correlates with a greater risk of employees underperforming in cognitive tasks. This, along with the previously mentioned issue of measuring cognitive skill, has resulted in employers requiring credentials, such as college degrees. Matt Sigelman,

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of a labor market analysis firm, elaborates on why employers such as himself value degrees:

History

Western culture, specifically that in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, has experienced a rise in the attractiveness of professions and a decline in the attractiveness of

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...

and independent business. This shift could be attributed to the class stratification that occurred during the

Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...

. The Gilded Age was a period of time marked by a rise in big businesses and

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

, particularly within the construction and oil industries. During the Long Depression, the monopoly trusts dispossessed

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

and

subsistence farmers Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no s ...

of their land. This combined with the mechanization of farm work led to mass proletarianization, employers or the self-employed becoming wage laborers, as individuals took jobs working on large projects such as the Transcontinental Railroad. Rapid advancements such as railroad developments and increased use of steamboats to import/export goods made cities such as New York and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

convenient places to operate a business, and therefore ideal places to find work. Local business owners had a difficult time competing with the large companies such as

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co- ...

and Armour operating out of cities. The ability for people to become entrepreneurs declined, and people began taking underpaying jobs at these companies. This fueled a class divide between the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

and industrialists (also called " robber barons") such as

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in ...

and John Rockefeller. Attempting to increase the prestige of one's occupation became standard among working class individuals trying to recover from the financial hardships of this time. Unqualified individuals turned to professions such as

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

and law, which had low barriers to entry. Referring to this phenomenon, historian Robert Huddleston Wiebe once commented: The establishment of legitimized professional certifications began after the turn of the twentieth century when the Carnegie Foundation published reports on medical and law education. One example of such reports is the Flexner Report, written by educator Abraham Flexner. This research led to the closing of low-quality medical and law schools. The impact of the many unqualified workers of the Gilded age also increased motivation to weed out unqualified workers in other professions. Professionalization increased, and the number of professions and professionals multiplied. There were economic benefits to this because it lowered the competition for jobs by weeding out unqualified candidates, driving up salaries. The alliance of employers with educational institutions progressed throughout the twentieth century as businesses and technological advancements progressed. Businessmen were unable to keep schedules or accounts in their heads like the small-town merchant had once done. New systems of

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

, organization, and

business management Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of managemen ...

were developed. In his book The Visible Hand, Alfred Chandler of Harvard Business School explained that the increase in large corporations with multiple divisions killed off the hybrid owner/managers of simpler times and created a demand for salaried, "scientific" management. The development of professional management societies, research groups, and university business programs began in the early 1900s. By 1910, Harvard and Dartmouth offered graduate business programs and

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

offered undergraduate business programs. By the 1960s, nearly half of all managerial jobs formally required either an undergraduate or graduate degree.

Academic inflation

Academic inflation is the contention that an excess of

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

-educated individuals with lower degrees (associate and bachelor's degrees) and even higher qualifications (master's or doctorate degrees) compete for too few jobs that require these degrees. Academic inflation occurs when university graduates take up work that was not formerly done by graduates of a certain level, and higher-degree holders continue to migrate to this particular occupation until it eventually becomes a field known as a "graduate profession" and the minimum job requirements have been inflated academically for low-level job tasks.Rowntree, 'Assessing Students: How Shall We Know Them?', Routledge Grading 1987, page 19, The institutionalizing of professional education has resulted in fewer and fewer opportunities for young people to work their way up from by "learning on the job." Academic inflation leads employers to put more faith into certificates and diplomas awarded on the basis of other people's assessments. The term "academic inflation" was popularized by Ken Robinson in his TED Talk entitled "Schools Kill Creativity." Academic inflation has been analogized to the inflation of paper currencies where too much currency chases too few commodities.

Credential inflation or degree inflation

Credential inflation refers to the devaluation of educational or academic credentials over time and a corresponding decrease in the expected advantage given a degree holder in the job market. Credential inflation is thus similar to price inflation, and describes the declining value of earned certificates and degrees. Credential inflation in the form of increased educational requirements and testing, can also create artificial labor shortages. Credential inflation has been recognized as an enduring trend over the past century in Western

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after compl ...

, and is also known to have occurred in ancient China and Japan, and at Spanish universities of the 17th century. For instance, in the late 1980s, a bachelor's degree was the standard qualification to enter the profession of physical therapy. By the 1990s, a master's degree was expected. Today, a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

is becoming the norm. State requirements that registered nurses hold bachelors degrees have also contributed to a nursing shortage.

Indications

A good example of credential inflation is the decline in the value of the US high school diploma since the beginning of the 20th century, when it was held by less than 10 percent of the population. At the time, high school diplomas attested to middle-class respectability and for many years even provided access to managerial level jobs. More recently, however, a high school diploma barely qualifies the graduate for menial service work.Randall Collins, "Credential Inflation and the Future of Universities," Chapter One of ''The Future of the City of Intellect: The Changing American University'', edited by Steven Brint (Stanford University Press, 2002), pages 23-46. One indicator of credential inflation is the relative decline in the wage differential between those with college degrees and those with only high school diplomas. An additional indicator is the gap between the credentials requested by employers in job postings and the qualifications of those already in those occupations. A 2014 study in the United States found, for example, that 65% of job postings for executive secretaries and executive assistants now call for a bachelor's degree, but only 19% of those currently employed in these roles have a degree.Burning Glass Technologies
"Moving the Goalposts: How Demand for a Bachelor's Degree Is Reshaping the Workforce,"
Sept. 2014, accessed 2016-06-12 Jobs that were open to high school graduates decades ago now routinely require higher education as well—without an appreciable change in required skills. In some cases, such as IT help desk roles, a study found there was little difference in advertised skill requirements between jobs requiring a college degree and those that do not.

Causes

The causes of credential inflation are controversial, but it is generally thought to be the result of increased access to higher education. This has resulted in entry level jobs requesting a bachelor's (or higher) degree when they were once open to high school graduates. Potential sources of credential inflation include: degree requirements by employers, self-interest of individuals and families, increased standards of living which allow for additional years of education, cultural pushes for being educated, and the availability of federal student loans which allow many more individuals to obtain credentials than could otherwise afford to do so. In particular, the internal dynamics of credential inflation threaten higher education initiatives around the world because credential inflation appears to operate independently of market demand for credentials. The push for more Americans to get a higher education rests on the well-evidenced idea that those without a college degree are less employable. Many critics of higher education, in turn, complain that a surplus of college graduates has produced an "employer's market."

Problems

Credential inflation is a controversial topic. There is very little consensus on how, or if, this type of inflation impacts higher education, the job market, and salaries. Some common concerns discussed in this topic are: * College tuition and fee increases have been blamed on degree inflation, though the current data do not generally support this assertion. * Credential-driven students may be less engaged than those who are attending college for personal enrichment. * Devaluation of other forms of learning. * Opportunity costs of attending graduate school, which can include delayed savings, less years in work force (and less earnings), and postponement of starting families. * Lack of adequately trained faculty and rises in the number of adjunct professors which can adversely impact quality of education. * Grade inflation has been correlated to degree inflation by some academics, though the causal direction is debated. * Some have accused degree inflation of devaluating job and employment experience, though most data show that degrees are not as highly sought after as relevant experience, which is the cited reason for student loan debt that cannot be paid back.

Grade inflation

Grade inflation is the tendency to award progressively higher

academic grades Grade most commonly refers to: * Grade (education), a measurement of a student's performance * Grade, the number of the year a student has reached in a given educational stage * Grade (slope), the steepness of a slope Grade or grading may also ref ...

for work that would have received lower grades in the past. It is frequently discussed in relation to

education in the United States Education in the United States is provided in public and private schools and by individuals through homeschooling. State governments set overall educational standards, often mandate standardized tests for K–12 public school systems and s ...

, and to GCSEs and A levels in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is En ...

. It is also discussed as an issue in Canada and many other nations, especially Australia and New Zealand.

References

* **

External links

{{Wiktionary

Credential inflation

* Noel Weyrich, Failing Grades, The Pennsylvania Gazette, March/April 200

* Gary North, The PhD Glut Revisited, 24 January 200

* Randall Collins, The Dirty Little Secret of Credential Inflation, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 September 2002, Volume 49, Issue 5, Page B2

* Randall Collins, "Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification", ''American Sociological Review,'' Vol. 36, No. 6. (Dec., 1971), pp. 1002-1019 (for the earliest discussion of how credential inflation operates, see 1015-1016)

* Randall Collins, The Credential Society. New York: Academic Press, 1979, pp. 191–204

* Lowell Gallaway, The Supreme Court and the Inflation of Educational Credentials: Impact of Griggs examined. Clarion Call, 9 November 200

* Laura Pappano "The Masters as the New Bachelor's" (New York Times, 22 July 2011)
link
* Joseph B. Fuller & Manjari Raman et al. (October 2017).
Dismissed by Degrees: How degree inflation is undermining U.S. competitiveness and hurting America's middle class
. Accenture, Grads of Life & Harvard Business School.

Academic inflation

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

How To Stand Out from the Herd
2007

Grade inflation

Grade Inflation At American Colleges and Universities
* Alfie Kohn
The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation
* Steven Landsburg
Grade Expectations: Why grade inflation is bad for schools--and what to do about it.

Grade Inflation, Ethics and Engineering Education

So that is why they are leaving (the sciences) from Inside Higher Ed

(''The Washington Post'' article written by

Alicia Shepard Alicia C. Shepard (born April 27, 1953, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American journalist, media writer and expert on the work and lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. In February 2014, she moved to Kabul, Afghanistan to work with Afghan j ...

)
Nominal GPA and Real GPA: A Simple Adjustment that Compensates for Grade Inflation

Real GPA and Real SET: Two Antidotes to Greed, Sloth, and Cowardice in the College Classroom
Education issues Student assessment and evaluation Waste of resources

Credentialism and professionalization

Causes

Knowledge economy

History

Academic inflation

Credential inflation or degree inflation

Indications

Causes

Problems

Grade inflation

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Credential inflation

Academic inflation

Grade inflation