Hyper Credentialism and the Neoliberal College Meltdown (Glen McGhee and Dahn Shaulis)

In the neoliberal era, higher education has become less a public good and more a marketplace of promises. The ideology of “lifelong learning” has been weaponized into an endless treadmill of hyper-credentialism — a cycle in which students, workers, and institutions are trapped in perpetual pursuit of new degrees, certificates, and micro-badges.

From Education to Signaling

Once, a college degree was seen as a path to citizenship and critical thought. Today, it’s a market signal — and an increasingly weak one. The bachelor’s degree no longer guarantees stable employment, so the system produces ever-more credentials: master’s programs, micro-certificates, “badges,” and other digital tokens of employability.

This shift doesn’t solve economic precarity — it monetizes it. Workers internalize the blame for their own stagnating wages, believing that the next credential will finally make them “market ready.” Employers, meanwhile, use credential inflation to justify low pay and increased screening, outsourcing the costs of training onto individuals.

A Perfect Fit for Neoliberalism

Hyper-credentialism is not a side effect; it’s a feature of the neoliberal education economy. It supports four pillars of the model:

Privatization and Profit Extraction – Public funding declines while students pay more. Each new credential creates a new revenue stream for universities, online program managers (OPMs), and ed-tech corporations.

Individual Responsibility – The structural causes of unemployment or underemployment are reframed as personal failures. “You just need to upskill.”

Debt Dependency – Students and workers finance their “reskilling” through federal loans and employer-linked programs, feeding the student-debt industry and its servicers.

Market Saturation and Collapse – As more credentials flood the market, each becomes less valuable. Institutions respond by creating even more credentials, accelerating the meltdown.

The Education-Finance Complex

The rise of hyper-credentialism is inseparable from the growth of the education-finance complex — a web of universities, private lenders, servicers, and Wall Street investors.
Firms like 2U, Coursera, and Guild Education sell the illusion of “access” while extracting rents from students and institutions alike. University administrators, pressured by enrollment declines, partner with these firms to chase new markets — often by spinning up online master’s programs with poor outcomes.

The result is a debt-driven ecosystem that thrives even as public confidence collapses. The fewer good jobs there are, the more desperate people become to buy new credentials. The meltdown feeds itself.

Winners and Losers

Winners: Ed-tech executives, university administrators, debt servicers, and the politicians who promote “lifelong learning” as a substitute for wage growth or labor rights.

Losers: Students, adjunct faculty, working-class families, and the public universities hollowed out by austerity and privatization.

The rhetoric of “upskilling” and “personal growth” masks a grim reality: a transfer of wealth from individuals to financialized institutions under the guise of opportunity.

A System That Can’t Redeem Itself

As enrollment declines and public trust erodes, the industry doubles down on micro-credentials and “stackable” pathways — small fixes to a structural crisis. Each badge, each certificate, is sold as a ticket back into the middle class. Yet every new credential devalues the old, producing diminishing returns for everyone except those selling the product.

Hyper-credentialism thus becomes both the symptom and the accelerant of the college meltdown. It sustains the illusion of mobility in a collapsing system, ensuring that the blame never reaches the architects of austerity, privatization, and financialization.

Sources and Further Reading

Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution.

Giroux, Henry. Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education.

Cottom, Tressie McMillan. Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy.

The Higher Education Inquirer archives on the college meltdown, OPMs, and the debt economy.

How Higher Education Has Made America’s Caste System Worse

Higher education in the United States has long been marketed as the great equalizer—a system where hard work and talent supposedly translate into opportunity. But over the last four decades, it has increasingly reinforced and legitimized an American caste system. Through elite gatekeeping, rising tuition, unsustainable student debt, and the erosion of public support, higher education has helped harden economic class divisions, limit social mobility, and deepen inequality across racial and geographic lines.

The backdrop to this shift is a broader trend toward inequality in American society. The U.S. Gini Index—a measure of income inequality where 0 is perfect equality and 1 is maximum inequality—rose from 0.403 in 1980 to 0.494 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This ranks the United States among the most unequal of advanced economies. During this same period, college tuition increased by more than 1,200%—far outpacing both inflation and wage growth. Real wages for most Americans have remained stagnant since the late 1970s, while education has become more expensive and less accessible, especially for low- and middle-income families.

Elite universities have played a critical role in this transformation. Institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Columbia admit more students from families in the top 1% of the income distribution than from the bottom 60% combined, according to research by economists Raj Chetty and colleagues at Opportunity Insights. Legacy admissions, donor preferences, and access to elite extracurricular activities and expensive test prep services give wealthier applicants clear advantages. Despite growing awareness of these disparities, the gates to elite education remain closed to most Americans. In 2023, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action policies, further limiting access for underrepresented students of color.

Public colleges and universities, once affordable vehicles for upward mobility, have also become less accessible and more commercialized. State disinvestment in public higher education has been dramatic. Between 1980 and 2020, state funding per student declined by nearly 20% in inflation-adjusted dollars. To make up the shortfall, public universities increased tuition and fees, shifted toward out-of-state and international students who pay more, and invested in revenue-generating activities like athletics, real estate, and research partnerships with private industry. Flagship universities have increasingly mimicked elite privates, while regional public universities—serving the most vulnerable populations—have been neglected, consolidated, or closed.

For-profit colleges, often owned by private equity firms, have targeted low-income, first-generation, and non-traditional students, promising quick credentials and job placement. In reality, many of these institutions deliver poor outcomes, high dropout rates, and outsized debt burdens. According to the U.S. Department of Education, students at for-profit institutions are twice as likely to default on their loans compared to those at public colleges.

The student loan crisis is a defining feature of this caste-like system. Total student loan debt in the U.S. surpassed $1.7 trillion in 2023, with more than 45 million Americans carrying loans. Black borrowers, in particular, face disproportionate burdens. Data from the Brookings Institution show that Black graduates owe an average of $25,000 more than white graduates four years after graduation, due in part to differences in generational wealth and post-college income. Many borrowers spend decades in repayment or fall into default, resulting in ruined credit, wage garnishment, and loss of social mobility.

Meanwhile, the internal labor structure of higher education mirrors the broader erosion of the middle class. Since the 1970s, the percentage of faculty in tenure-track positions has declined from roughly 70% to under 30%. Today, more than 70% of college instructors are contingent workers—adjuncts or lecturers without job security, benefits, or a livable wage. Many earn less than $3,500 per course, forcing them to string together multiple jobs or rely on public assistance. The very institutions that promote education as the path to professional stability are exploiting educated workers at scale.

Credential inflation has also contributed to the caste structure. Jobs that once required a high school diploma now demand a bachelor’s degree, while others that once required a bachelor's now demand a master's or doctorate. This escalation has not always come with higher pay or better conditions but has added years of unpaid or underpaid labor, especially in fields like education, social work, and academia. As employers outsource training responsibilities to colleges, individuals are expected to invest more in credentials—often at their own expense—just to remain competitive.

Cultural narratives of meritocracy continue to legitimize these outcomes. College is still portrayed as a personal investment and a moral obligation—despite clear evidence that structural inequality determines who can afford to attend, who can complete a degree, and who can leverage it into economic stability. The myth that higher education is a universal equalizer serves to obscure how deeply stratified the system has become.

Higher education could be a force for economic justice and democratic renewal. But as it currently functions, it serves as a sorting mechanism that reproduces existing hierarchies. Elite institutions credential the ruling class. Public universities ration opportunity through rising costs. For-profit schools prey on the vulnerable. And the debt system punishes those who try to improve their circumstances through education.

Unless the system is restructured—through robust public funding, tuition-free options, large-scale debt relief, labor protections, and a renewed commitment to equity—higher education will continue to solidify America's caste system rather than dismantle it.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (Gini Index), U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Opportunity Insights, Brookings Institution, Institute for Higher Education Policy, The Century Foundation, “The Merit Myth” by Anthony Carnevale et al., “The Debt Trap” by Josh Mitchell

The Truth About Degrees, Debt, and Why You’re Always Chasing the Next Credential (Glen McGhee)

A System Designed to Keep You in Debt

If you're in college right now, you’ve probably heard that getting a degree is the key to success. But have you noticed something strange? Everyone seems to need more and more education just to get the same kinds of jobs. A high school diploma used to be enough. Then it was a bachelor’s degree. Now people need master’s degrees—and still struggle to get hired.

Meanwhile, tuition keeps going up. Student debt in the U.S. has reached over $1.7 trillion, affecting more than 43 million people. Many of us are borrowing tens of thousands of dollars just to get a shot at a decent job. Some never escape this debt, even decades later.

This isn't just bad luck. It's a system, and it works really well—for banks, employers, and universities. But not for you.

Credentials Are the New Chains

A few critical thinkers—like economist Michael Hudson and philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato—have a name for what’s happening: debt peonage. That’s a fancy way of saying people are trapped in endless debt, not because they’re lazy or irresponsible, but because the system is built to keep them there.

They argue that education has been turned into a machine for generating debt. It’s not just about learning anymore—it’s about taking on loans you’ll be paying off for decades, often for jobs that don’t even require the degree you earned.

This debt doesn’t just affect your bank account—it shapes your whole life. It influences the jobs you take, how much you’re paid, whether you can move, start a family, or speak up at work. In other words, debt is a tool of control.

More School, More Debt, Less Power

There’s a name for what's happening with degrees: credential inflation. It means that as more people earn degrees, employers keep raising the bar—asking for more education, even if the job doesn’t really need it.

This works out great for employers. You need the job to pay off your loans. You’re less likely to ask for higher wages or better conditions. You’re easier to control. Think about it. When you owe $38,000 in student loans, can you really afford to quit your job? Or turn down unpaid internships? Or fight back when you’re treated unfairly?

That’s not a bug in the system—it’s the point.

The Rise of the Academic Underclass

It doesn’t stop with students. Many of your professors and TAs are also part of what we might call the academic precariat—people with master’s or even PhDs who are stuck working part-time for low pay, no benefits, and no job security.

These are the folks who teach your classes, grade your papers, and write your recommendation letters—while living paycheck to paycheck and often on government assistance. They’re the most educated people in the country—and many of them can’t afford basic needs.

Why does this happen? Because colleges don’t have to pay them fairly. There are more PhDs than full-time teaching jobs, so universities keep a huge pool of low-paid instructors they can use whenever they want. That’s called a “standing reserve” of labor—and it's incredibly profitable for institutions.

The Internship Trap

And then there are unpaid internships—another form of credential inflation. Now, just having a degree isn’t enough. You also need “experience.” But that experience is often unpaid, meaning students (and their families) cover the cost of working for free.

This second wave of credential inflation hits working-class students hardest. Many can’t afford to work unpaid jobs, pay rent, and take classes at the same time. So the system ends up rewarding privilege and punishing struggle—again.

And here’s the kicker: unpaid interns often don’t even get jobs. Studies show people who never interned sometimes do just as well—or better.

Is There Another Way?

You might be thinking: but aren’t degrees still worth it? Isn’t this just the way things work?

That’s exactly what the system wants you to believe. And while it’s true that some education leads to better job outcomes, it’s also true that the cost is rising faster than the benefit. And the system is rigged to keep you in debt no matter what.

So what can we do? First, question the system, not yourself. If you’re overwhelmed by debt or struggling to find a job, you’re not failing—the system is. Second, recognize that individual solutions—like working harder, studying longer, or networking more—won’t fix a structural problem. What we’re facing is a system that uses debt to control, not to educate.

Final Thought

Degrees should be tools for empowerment, not chains of obligation. But as long as education is tied to debt, exploitation, and ever-escalating credential requirements, it will remain part of a system designed to extract—not uplift.

It’s time to stop asking how can I survive this system and start asking why does this system exist at all?

The Misleading Myth of the College Premium

For decades, the so-called college premium—the idea that earning a college degree guarantees significantly higher lifetime earnings compared to a high school diploma—has been used to sell higher education to the American public. Politicians, economists, and university marketing teams alike have touted the promise of upward mobility through higher education. But this narrative is increasingly misleading, especially for working-class, first-generation, and marginalized students.

The College Premium: Averages vs. Reality

At its core, the college premium is based on averages. Federal and private data sources often claim that college graduates earn, on average, $1 million more over their lifetimes than those with only a high school diploma. But averages conceal enormous variation. They ignore who goes to college, where they go, what they study, and how much they borrow to get there.

That $1 million premium is skewed by high earners—doctors, lawyers, engineers, and business executives who often come from wealthier families and attend elite institutions. Meanwhile, a large and growing number of students graduate with low-paying degrees, insurmountable debt, and job prospects that resemble those of high school graduates from decades past.

Who Gets Misled—and Hurt

Students from working-class backgrounds often attend less selective colleges and universities—regional public schools, underfunded community colleges, or even predatory for-profit institutions. These students are more likely to work while enrolled, take longer to graduate, or drop out altogether. The result: little to no earnings gain, but significant debt burdens. For them, the college premium is often negative.

Systemic racism in the labor market erodes the supposed premium for Black and Latino graduates. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Black college graduates earn roughly 20% less than white peers with the same degrees. They also face higher unemployment rates, especially in economic downturns. When combined with higher average debt loads, the risk-to-reward ratio becomes starkly inequitable.

Not all degrees yield high returns. Many students major in education, social work, or the arts—not because these fields are unworthy, but because they are essential to society. Yet these professions are often undervalued and underpaid. Graduates may find themselves stuck with large student loans and salaries that barely cover basic living expenses. In these cases, the premium barely materializes.

Roughly 40% of college students in the U.S. fail to graduate within six years. These students take on debt but receive none of the (alleged) earnings boost associated with a degree. They are the most vulnerable population—often saddled with loans they can't discharge in bankruptcy and credentials that offer no labor market value.

A Shifting Landscape

The labor market has changed dramatically. Credential inflation means more jobs require degrees without necessarily offering higher pay. Meanwhile, automation, outsourcing, and gig work have made many once-stable jobs insecure. A bachelor’s degree is no longer the ticket to the middle class that it once was, especially for those without access to elite networks and institutions.

At the same time, the cost of college has skyrocketed. Student loan debt now tops $1.7 trillion, and repayment burdens are keeping young adults from buying homes, saving for retirement, or starting families. The financial risks of college now rival the benefits, especially for the very populations who are promised it will change their lives.

Toward a More Honest Conversation

Rather than clinging to the college premium as a universal truth, policymakers, educators, and the public must grapple with its limits. We need transparent data on outcomes by institution, major, race, and income. We must invest in alternative pathways, including apprenticeships, vocational training, and debt-free community college. We must hold bad actors accountable, including for-profit colleges and institutions with high debt-to-earnings ratios. And we must stop blaming individuals for “bad choices” when the system itself is rigged to benefit the privileged few.

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The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to investigate and report on the disparities, disinformation, and systemic failures within U.S. higher education—because transparency and justice matter more than mythology.

Degrees of Discontent: Credentialism, Inflation, and the Global Education Crisis

In an era defined by rapid technological change, globalization, and economic precarity, the promise of higher education as a reliable path to social mobility is being questioned around the world. At the heart of this reckoning are two interrelated forces: credentialism and credential inflation. Together, they have helped fuel a crisis of discontent that spans continents, demographics, and generations.

The Age of Credentialism

Credentialism refers to the increasing reliance on educational qualifications—often formal degrees or certificates—as a measure of skill, value, and worth in the labor market. What was once a gateway to opportunity has, for many, become a gatekeeper.

In countries as diverse as the United States, Nigeria, South Korea, and Brazil, employers increasingly demand college degrees for jobs that previously required only a high school diploma or no formal education at all. These “degree requirements” often serve more as filters than as real indicators of competence. In the U.S., for example, nearly two-thirds of new jobs require a college degree, yet only around 38% of the adult population holds one. This creates a built-in exclusionary mechanism that hits working-class, first-generation, and minority populations hardest.

Credential Inflation: The Diminishing Value of Degrees

As more people earn degrees in hopes of improving their employment prospects, the relative value of those credentials declines—a phenomenon known as credential inflation. Where a bachelor’s degree once opened doors to managerial or professional roles, it now often leads to underemployment or precarious gig work. In response, students seek advanced degrees, fueling a “credential arms race” with diminishing returns.

In India and China, massive expansions of higher education have led to millions of graduates chasing a finite number of white-collar jobs. In places like Egypt, university graduates have higher unemployment rates than those with only a secondary education. In South Korea, a hyper-competitive education culture pushes students through years of tutoring and testing, only to graduate into a job market with limited high-status roles.

Tragedy in Tunisia: The Human Cost of Unemployment

Few stories illustrate the devastating impact of credentialism and mass youth unemployment more than that of Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian university graduate whose life and death sparked a revolution.

Unable to find formal employment, Bouazizi resorted to selling fruit and vegetables illegally in the town of Sidi Bouzid. In December 2010, after police confiscated his produce for lacking a permit, he set himself on fire in front of a local government building in a final act of desperation.

Bouazizi succumbed to his injuries weeks later, but not before igniting a firestorm of protests across Tunisia. His self-immolation became the catalyst for mass demonstrations against economic injustice, corruption, and authoritarianism—culminating in the Tunisian Revolution and inspiring uprisings throughout the Arab world.

At his funeral, an estimated 5,000 mourners marched, chanting: “Farewell, Mohammed, we will avenge you.” Bouazizi’s uncle said, “Mohammed gave his life to draw attention to his condition and that of his brothers.”

His act was not just a protest against police abuse, but a powerful indictment of a system that had produced thousands of educated but unemployed young people, whose degrees had become symbols of broken promises.

Global Discontent and Backlash

This dynamic of broken promises and rising discontent is global. In China, the “lying flat” movement reflects a rejection of endless striving in a system that offers diminishing returns on educational achievement. In South Korea, the “N-po” generation has opted out of traditional life goals, seeing little reward for their academic sacrifices.

In the U.S., distrust in higher education is mounting, with many questioning whether the cost of a degree is worth it. At the same time, a growing number of companies are dropping degree requirements altogether in favor of skills-based hiring.

Yet these moves often come too late for millions already trapped in a debt-fueled system, forced to chase credentials just to qualify for basic employment.

The Future of Work, the Future of Education

As automation and AI disrupt industries, the link between formal education and stable employment continues to fray. Policymakers call for "lifelong learning" and “upskilling,” but these strategies often place the burden back on workers without addressing the deeper failures of economic and educational systems.

To move forward, we must consider:

• Decoupling jobs from unnecessary credential requirements

• Investing in vocational and technical education with real career pathways

• Recognizing nontraditional forms of knowledge and skill

• Reframing education as a public good, not a consumer transaction

Reclaiming the Meaning of Education

Mohammed Bouazizi's story is a tragic reminder that the crisis of credentialism is not theoretical—it’s lived, felt, and fought over in the streets. Around the world, millions of young people feel abandoned by systems that promised opportunity but delivered anxiety, debt, and instability.

Unless global societies reimagine the relationship between education, work, and human dignity, the "degrees of discontent" will only continue to deepen. And as Bouazizi’s legacy shows, discontent—when ignored—can become revolutionary.

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Sources and References

• BBC News. “Tunisia suicide protester Mohammed Bouazizi dies.” January 5, 2011. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12120228

• Pew Research Center. “Public Trust in Higher Education is Eroding.” August 2023.

• Brown, Phillip. The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs, and Incomes. Oxford University Press, 2011.

• Marginson, Simon. “The Worldwide Trend to High Participation Higher Education: Dynamics of Social Stratification in Inclusive Systems.” Higher Education, 2016.

• The World Bank. “Education and the Labor Market.”

• The Guardian. “Lying Flat: China's Youth Protest Culture Grows.” June 2021.

• Korea Herald. “'N-po Generation' Gives Up on Marriage, Children, and More.” October 2022.

Chinese College Meltdown: Credential Inflation and the Crisis in Higher Education Employment

China's higher education system is facing a profound crisis, marked by rampant credential inflation, a saturated academic job market, and growing inequality between domestic and international degree holders. A recent study published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications provides empirical evidence of these trends, drawing from an extensive dataset of nearly 160,000 faculty resumes across 802 Chinese universities.

The Rise of Credential Inflation

Credential inflation refers to the escalating academic qualifications required for positions that previously demanded less. In China, this phenomenon is particularly pronounced in elite institutions, especially those under the "Project 211" initiative. The study reveals that new faculty hires increasingly possess higher degrees and more publications than their predecessors, a trend driven by intensified competition and institutional prestige.

This inflationary pressure disproportionately affects domestically educated candidates. Despite holding advanced degrees, many find themselves overshadowed by peers with international qualifications, who are often favored for positions at top-tier universities. This preference underscores a systemic devaluation of domestic academic credentials.

Favoring International Degrees

The study highlights a growing bias towards candidates with overseas education. These individuals are not only more likely to secure positions at prestigious institutions but also benefit from a perception of superior academic training. This trend exacerbates existing inequalities and places additional pressure on domestic scholars to seek international credentials, often at significant personal and financial cost.

Broader Economic and Social Implications

The implications of credential inflation extend beyond academia. China's youth unemployment rate has soared above 20%, leaving many graduates underemployed or reliant on parental support . This disconnect between educational attainment and employment opportunities fuels social discontent and challenges the narrative of higher education as a pathway to upward mobility.

Furthermore, the emphasis on international degrees may contribute to a brain drain, as talented individuals seek education and employment opportunities abroad. This trend could undermine China's efforts to cultivate a robust domestic academic and research environment.

Navigating the Crisis

Addressing this multifaceted crisis requires systemic reforms. Policymakers and educational institutions must reevaluate hiring practices, placing greater value on diverse academic experiences and competencies. Investments in domestic graduate programs, coupled with initiatives to enhance the global competitiveness of Chinese degrees, are essential.

Moreover, aligning higher education outcomes with labor market needs can help mitigate unemployment and underemployment among graduates. By fostering partnerships between academia and industry, China can ensure that its educational system produces graduates equipped with relevant skills and experiences.

The phenomenon of credential inflation in Chinese higher education reflects deeper structural challenges within the country's academic and employment landscapes. Without targeted interventions, these trends threaten to erode the value of domestic education, exacerbate social inequalities, and hinder China's aspirations for global academic leadership.

For a comprehensive understanding of this issue, refer to the full study: "Credential inflation and employment of university faculty in China"

Credential Inflation Makes College Degree Not Worth The Cost (Randall Collins)

[Editor's note: This article first appeared in Randall Collins' blog The Sociological Eye.]

Belief in the value of college education was sacrosanct throughout most of the 20th century. In the early 2000s, the question began to be raised whether the payoff in terms of a better-paying job was worth the cost. For several generations, almost a taboo topic--but once out in the open, an increasing percentage of the US population has concluded a college degree is not worth it.

The first big hit was the 2008 recession, when graduates found it hard to get jobs. But even as the economy recovered and grew, faith in college degrees has steadily declined.

In 2013, 53% of the population—a slim majority, agreed that a 4-year degree gives “a better chance to get a good job and earn more income over their lifetime.” In 2023, education-believers had fallen to 42%, while 56% said it was not worth the cost. Both women and men had turned negative in the latest survey—even though women had overtaken men in college enrollments in previous decades. The youngest generation was the most negative, 60% of those aged 18-34. Not surprisingly; they are the ones who had to apply to dozens of schools, a rat-race of test scores, scrambling for grades, and amassing extra-curricular activities; most not getting into their school of choice, while paying constantly rising tuition and fees, and burdened with student-loan debt into middle age. Not to mention the near-impossibility of buying a house at hugely inflated prices, many still living with their parents; while all generations now agree that the younger will not enjoy the standard of living of their parents.

The only demographic that still thinks college has career value are men with a college degree or higher, who earn over $100,000 a year. They are the only winners in the tournament. Every level of education—high school, junior college, 4-year college, M.B.A. or PhD or professional credential in law, medicine, etc.—has value as an entry ticket to the next level of competition for credentials. The financial payoff comes when you get to the big time, the Final Four so to speak; striving through the lower levels is motivated by a combination of American cultural habits and wishful thinking.

The boom-or-bust pattern of rising education makes more sense in long-term perspective. For 100 years, the USA has led the world in the proportion of the population in schools at all levels. In 1900, 6% of the youth cohort finished high school, and less than 2% had a college degree. High school started taking off in the 1920s, and after a big push in the 1950s to keep kids in school, reached 77% in 1970. Like passing the baton, as high school became commonplace, college attendance rocketed, jumping to 53% at the end of the 1960s—there was a reason for all those student protests of the Sixties: they were suddenly a big slice of the American population. By 2017, 30% over age 24 had a college degree; another 27% had some years of college. It has been a long-time pattern that only about half of all college students finish their degree—dropping out of college has always been prevalent, and still is.

The growing number of students at all levels has been a process of credential inflation. The value of any particular diploma—high school, college, M.A., PhD—is not constant; it depends on the labor market at the time, the amount of competition from others who have the same degree. In the 1930s, only 12% of employers required a college degree for managers; by the late 1960s, it was up to 40%. By the 1990s, an M.B.A. was the preferred degree for managerial employment; and even police departments were hiring college-educated cops. In other words, as college attendance has become almost as common as high school, it no longer conveys much social status. To get ahead in the elite labor market, one needs advanced and specialized degrees. In the medical professions, the process of credential-seeking goes on past age 30; for scientists, a PhD needs to be supplemented by a couple of years in a post-doctoral fellowship, doing grunt-work in somebody else’s laboratory. In principle, credential inflation has no end in sight.

An educational diploma is like money: a piece of paper whose value depends inversely on how much of it is in circulation. In the monetary world, printing more money reduces its purchasing power. The same thing happens with turning out more educational credentials—with one important difference. Printing money is relatively cheap (and so is the equivalent process of changing banking policies so that more credit is issued). But minting a college degree is expensive: someone has to pay for the teachers, the administrators, the buildings, and whatever entertainments and luxuries (such as sports and student activities) the school offers—and which make up a big part of its attraction for American students. And all this degree-printing apparatus has been becoming more expensive over the decades, far outpacing the amount of monetary inflation since the 1980s. Colleges and universities (as well as high schools and elementary schools) keep increasing the proportion of administrators and staff. At the top end of the college market, the professors who give the school its reputation by their research command top salaries.

Credential-minting institutions have been able to charge whatever they can get away with, because of the high level of competition among students for admission. Not all families can afford it; but enough of them can so that schools can charge many multiples of what they charged (in constant dollars) even 30 years ago. The result has been a huge expansion in student debt: averaging $38,000 among 45 million borrowers; and including 70% of all holders of B.A. degrees. Total student debt tripled between 2007 and 2022.

These three different kinds of inflation reinforce each other: inflation in the amount of credential currency chasing jobs in the job market; inflation in the cost of getting a degree; inflation in student debt. We could add grade inflation as a fourth part of the spiral: intensifying pressure to get into college and if possible beyond, has motivated students to put pressure on their teachers to grade more easily; in public schools, to pass them along to the next grade no matter their performance (retardation in grade, which in the 1900s was common, has virtually disappeared); in college, GPA-striving has a similar effect. Grades are higher than ever but the measured value of the contents of education, ranging from writing skills to how long the course material is remembered after the course is over is low (Arum and Roksa 2011, 2014). College degrees are not only inflated as to job-purchasing power; they are also inflated as a measure of what skills they actually represent.

The remedies suggested for some of these problems--- such as canceling student debt by government action—would temporarily relieve some ex-students of the burden of paying for not-so-valuable degrees. But canceling student debt would not solve the underlying dynamic of credential inflation, but exacerbate it. If college education became free (either by government directly picking up the tab; or by canceling student debts), we can expect even more students to seek higher degrees. If 100% of the population has a college degree, its advantage on the labor market is exactly zero; you would have to get some further degree to get a competitive edge.

Scandals in college admissions are just one more sign of the pressures corroding the value of education. College employees collude with wealthy parents to create fake athletic skills, in a time when students apply to dozens of schools, and even top grades don’t guarantee admission. Since athletics are a big part of schools’ prestige, and are considered a legitimate pathway to admission outside the grade-inflation tournament, it is hardly surprising that some try that side-door entry. There is not only grade inflation, but inflation in competition over the pseudo-credentials of extracurricular activites and community service. Efforts at increasing race and class equity in admissions increase the pressure among the affluent and the non-minority populations. Since sociological evidence shows that tests and grades favour children of the higher classes (whose families provide them with what Bourdieu called cultural capital), there are moves to eliminate test scores and/or grades as criteria of admission. What is left may be letters of recommendation and self-extolling essays--- what we might call “rhetorical inflation”, plus skin color or other demographic markers; but the result will do nothing to reduce the inflation of credentials. The underlying hope is that giving everybody a college degree will somehow bring about social equality. In reality, it will just add another chapter to the history of credential inflation.

Except for the small percentage of really good students who will take the tournament all the way to the most advanced degrees and become well-paid scientists and professionals, the growing disillusionment with the value of college degrees will result in more and more people looking for alternative routes to making a living. The big fortunes of the last 40 years--- the age of information technology—have been made by entrepreneurs who dropped out to pursue opportunities just opening up, instead of waiting to finish a degree. The path to fame and fortune is not monopolized by the education tournament. For the rest of us, finding more immediate ways of making a living (or living off someone else) will become more important.

P.S. The advent of Artificial Intelligence to write students’ papers, and other AI to grade them (not to mention to write their application essays and read them for admission) will do nothing to raise the honesty and status of the educational credential chase.

References

“More Say Colleges Aren’t Worth the Cost.” Wall Street Journal April 1, 2023 (NORC-Wall St. Journal survey)

Average Student Loan Debt (BestColleges.com) 

U.S. Bureau of the Census

Randall Collins. 2019. The Credential Society. 2nd edition. Columbia Univ. Press.

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. 2011. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. 2014. Aspiring Adults Adrift: Tentative Transitions of College Graduates. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.