Credentialism is the combination of two related phenomena. First, it is the stacking and use of credentials for their signaling power rather than for the skills and knowledge they convey. Second, credentialism is the ever-growing accumulation of credentials with diminishing levels of return from each subsequent credential. In recent decades, credentialism has become the dominant conduit to increasingly scarce quality jobs in the United States. This has resulted in a credentials arms race between workers, promulgated both by job training policy and firm practices. Credentialism bestows financial rewards on credential providers, especially the nondegree credential providers that both U.S. political parties now tout as providing an alternative pathway to higher education. But credentialism burdens individual workers, perpetuates racial inequities and class antagonism, and demobilizes workers by prioritizing individualist credential stacking over collective organizing. This Article lays out the impact of credentialism and outlines possible responses. Credentialism thrives because of its entrenchment in the meritocracy narrative. This narrative preaches that if workers expend money and time on credentials, they will be rewarded through greater career security, pay, and ultimately, social mobility. For many workers, however, the narrative is largely a myth perpetuated by laws that encourage a private market for job training and absolve the state and employers of responsibility. That private market flourishes with over a million unique credentials for purchase; these are mostly short-term nondegree credentials with minimal quality oversight. Workers are left to navigate this daunting market alone, with people of color and immigrants especially lacking good guidance and protections against predation. Central to the responses to credentialism is a partial reallocation of responsibility for quality job training from workers to employers and the state. In particular, applying disparate impact theory would hold employers more responsible for their choices in perpetuating credentialism. Likewise, demanding worker-centered accountability metrics for public funding for job training and establishing tripartite boards that define credential requirements would hold the state more responsible for guiding workers to quality careers with minimal training debt. This push to recenter workers in job training should be viewed as part of a larger project to boost worker bargaining power.

Continue reading Credentialism at Work.

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