Post on 08-Mar-2015
“...[The situation] could [escalate] until janitors need PhD’s and babysitters are required
to hold advanced degrees in childcare,” (Weyrich 3). So Randall Collins said of credential
inflation, one of the enduring trends of modern America. Higher and higher education is
required to remain competitive in the job market. More and more emphasis is placed needlessly
on degrees and schooling. Jobs that once required high school diplomas now only admit those
holding bachelor’s or even graduate degrees. The causes are multifarious, subtle and
interwoven, and often difficult to differentiate from effects, but lead to two overarching themes:
the desire of the elite to stay on top, and the ideals of democracy. This situation, if allowed to
continue without regulation, has the deleterious potential to affect America’s intellectual culture,
economy, social mobility, and economic equality.
Nowadays, the prevailing consensus on what to do after high school is to attend college.
From 1997 to 2007 alone, enrollment in post-secondary education increased twenty-six percent,
(National Center for Educational Statistics, Fast Facts, Table). College, many think, is a sure
thing, the best route to a decent paying job and financial security. This view isn’t far from the
truth either. The median annual pay of workers, ages twenty-five to thirty-four, holding a
bachelor’s degree in 1980 was $52,300. High-school graduates of the same age only earned
$44,200. An eight thousand dollar difference of this sort isn’t overtly condemning of the high-
school degree’s prospects, but looking twenty-eight years later, a marked and rather
disconcerting gap begins to form. the bachelor’s degree median pay rises slightly under three
thousand dollars, which isn’t particularly noteworthy of itself, while the high school graduate’s
pay drops over twelve thousand (NCES, Fast Facts, Table). Not only is this substantial
decrease alarming, as such a salary is hardly above the poverty line for families of five, but it is
also validates the credential inflation trend. It is unlikely that the jobs held by high-school grads
remained in the same sector and universally decreased in pay by such a margin. Rather, it is
much more probable that the jobs themselves shifted to a better educated employee base,
pushing high-school diploma-holders down to lower paying jobs.
One of the surest indicators of credential inflation is the expansion of the education
system. If higher degrees are required to receive the same jobs as previously, it follows that
more students would pursue further education. Between 1970 and 2007, enrollment in
undergraduate institutions increased by over eight and a half million students, almost doubling.
For-profit schools, like the University of Phoenix, nearly tripled in number between 1997 and
2007, mushrooming from one-hundred seventy to four-hundred ninety schools, (NCES, Fast
Facts, Table). Of course, some of this is due to population increase as a whole, but the
difference doesn’t fully account for the increase in the student body. Resulting from the baby
boom, the population of college-aged U.S. residents was at a peak in the late ‘70s, and then
progressively declined until the mid-‘90s and didn’t surpass the peak again until recent years,
(U.S. Census Bureau). Interestingly, even while the population of eighteen to twenty-five year-
old’s was decreasing, enrollment in post-secondary education still managed to increase
eighteen percent between 1985 and 1992. Furthermore, fifty percent of high-school graduates
continued their education in 1972, whereas almost seventy percent did so in 2008, (NCES, Fast
Facts, Table). These statistics in mind, population increase as a suspect for education
expansion holds a relatively minor position in comparison to credential inflation.
Some of the above statistics, one should note, regard post-secondary education in
general, community, technical and various other certification schools included. In no way does
this reduce their efficacy in proving credential inflation, however, as an increased need for
licensing is occurring in almost all fields, still indicating credential inflation. For more concrete
evidence regarding bachelor’s degrees specifically, consider Bellevue Community College in
Washington State. Early 2009, it changed its name to Bellevue College and granted its first
bachelor’s degrees. The college isn’t alone in this transition, either. Ninety-five other
community colleges made the shift in 2008. Reasoning behind this is clear: the demand for
bachelor’s degrees is increasing. The impetus of credential inflation is pushing colleges like
Bellevue to offer higher degrees, (“More Community Colleges Now Offering Bachelor’s
Degrees” 1-3).
In further demonstrating the existence of credential inflation, an additional facet of the
trend should be examined: higher credentials do not necessarily, if at all, correlate with better
job performance, nor does the need for credentials correlate with the demands of a more
advanced society. Improvements in technology do not necessarily require a more educated
workforce. That is the nature of credential inflation; more education is required to do the same
job as before. This may seem opposed to logic. With the IT sector expanding rapidly and
exportation of menial labor jobs to third world countries becoming commonplace, it seems
natural that jobs would shift to requiring more expertise and skilled workers, and in turn more
education. Nonetheless, there is strong evidence to refute this, hinging on the fact that most
practical knowledge is learned on the job. As Randall Collins claimed: “the skills of cutting-edge
industries are generally learned on the job or through experience rather than in high school or
college”, (“the Dirty Little Secret of Credential Inflation” 6).
In “the Dirty Little Secret of Credential Inflation”, Collins further states that:
...a high-tech society does not mean that a high proportion of the labor force consists of
experts. A more likely pattern -- and the one we see emerging today -- is a bifurcation of
the labor force into an "expert" sector -- perhaps 20 percent -- and a much larger range
of those with routine or even menial service jobs. With continuing computerization and
automation, typical middle-class jobs may gradually disappear, leaving an even bigger
gap between a small elite of technical, managerial, and financial experts, and everyone
else (7).
With that, it is fairly clear that technology in no way increases need for expertise. To
back this claim with actual evidence, rather than expert opinion, consider the study conducted
by Dr. Ivar Berg in the 1960-’70s. The Federal Aviation Administration trained five-hundred
seven men, about half lacking post-high-school education. Some years later, (unspecified), half
of the college grads had earned no awards from supervisors, while only one-third of the high-
school grads had done the same and forty-three percent had earned at least two. Thus, Berg
surmised that “education proves not to be a factor in the daily performances of one of the most
demanding decision-making jobs in America”, (“Failing Grades” 3).
Another example of unnecessary credentials is evident in the resignation of MIT Dean of
Admissions, Marilee Jones, on April 26, 2007. Some twenty-eight years earlier, she had
fabricated three degrees on her application to a lower level job in the Admissions office,
(Seward 1-2). In reality, she had only graduated high-school. When she was being considered
for the Dean’s position in ’98, she reportedly didn’t have the courage to correct her resume. As
a Dean, Jones was a visionary in college admissions reform, trying to mitigate the stress of the
admissions process on students. She also championed the change of emphasis on
extracurriculars. Instead of focusing on a long, impressive list of activities, which leads
inevitably to shallow participation in all, she supported large contributions to a small number,
(Seward 8). With this work, among other things, she was praised as a wonderful Dean of
Admissions, perhaps the best in recent MIT history. Clearly, Marilee Jones was capable, even
successful, at her job. But the interesting thing is she likely would have never received the
position, had she not made such a fabrication twenty-eight years earlier. Such a heavy
emphasis on credentials, without thought of their actual worth, becomes absurd in this light.
They can hardly be held as an indicator for future success.
To fully assert the existence of the trend of credential inflation, its longevity must be
discussed. Tacit in many of the statistics, some ranging back to the ‘60s and ‘70s, is a clear
sense of duration. Of itself, this evidence should be sufficient, but more discourse on the matter
is warranted. Intermittent periods of trends of similar sorts have been manifest in societies
everywhere, as early as the Confucian system of education, in which gentry were often
educated until their thirties and forties. Looking throughout history, at Spanish education in the
1500s and French in the 1700s, it becomes clear that credential inflation is the hallmark of an
advancing civilization; once a point is reached where formal education is prevalent, it becomes
a grinding competition to receive the highest credentialing offered. It also becomes clear that
need for higher certification ebbs and flows. Slowly credentials inflate more and more until the
population realizes the price outweighs the pay-out. Disillusionment and abandonment of
formalized education follows and the cycle starts all over again. In recent U.S. history alone,
one can clearly observe this characteristic. Around the resolution of World War II, college
enrollment began to increase steadily until the 1971. Then, enrollment rates dropped off by
almost ten percent and didn’t surpass the ’71 levels until 1981. After this drop off, rates
increased almost without exception, totaling a seventeen percent increase from ’81 to date,
(NCES). As for whether this trend is here to stay, experts agree that credential inflation will
continue for years to come. Collins, in his “Credentials Inflation and the Future of Universities”,
even claims it could escalate until we have a socialistic system revolving around education.
The tenability of credential inflation as a trend can hardly be further questioned. To
understand it more fully, however, its causes must be mentioned. First, the causality of a trend
of such immense scope, spanning thousands of universities, millions of students, and hundreds
of billions of dollars of a GNP spent each year, is admittedly convoluted and indiscernible to the
average observer. It almost requires a PhD in sociology to scratch the surface. However, in
reducing it to a form understandable to any uninformed of the issue, two overriding causes
emerge: social classes and the idea of democratic equality.
In discussing the former, I must defer to Max Weber, whose credentialing theory has
largely been acknowledged as the best explanation for the phenomenon. His ideas depart from
the standard view that universities are “merely meritocratic institutions that sort individuals and
certify their objective technical skills,” (Brown 2). Rather, he claims credentials are more than
anything “exclusionary cultural entry barriers to positions,” (Brown 2). The essence of his
argument comes down to an underlying desire of the elite to stay on top. The rich, he claims,
want to secure positions for themselves and their progeny in the upper tier. Of course, they
aren’t conspiring to do such. It isn’t as if all the elite in America collectively decided to drive up
the need for credentials. No, the driving force is the instinct of self-preservation. Wealth and
success is tenuous. Obviously, no guarantee exists that one will always be rich, or that one’s
children will succeed of their own merit. But with the establishment of an institution, education,
which financial success hinges upon, the affluent can easily take advantage. Even further, if
that institution requires a particularly weighty financial burden, there will be a natural predilection
to the wealthy. With the expansion of that very institution, soon lower classes will no longer be
afforded the opportunity to move upwards, thus cementing social stratification. In other words,
credential inflation is a mechanism the wealthy use to stay wealthy (Brown 3).
Clearly, a motive is present for the elite to push the spiral of credentialism upwards.
Their methods of succeeding in this without coordination are unclear, however. Even Weber,
the author of this theory, provides little explanation. To conjecture, the method is likely rooted in
the fact that the elite are in positions of power and management. They often have control over
hiring policies. As Randall Collins said in his “Credential Inflation and the Future of
Universities”, the elite then use this power to “redefine their jobs and to eliminate
noncredentialed <sic> jobs around them” (13). Thus, the demand for credentials increases,
education, a credential-granting institution, expands, and the elite monopolize the education
system, effectively securing their position at the top of society.
Most modern sociologists agree that this theory provides perhaps the best explanation of
credential inflation. As previously mentioned, however, the minutiae and causation of an
occurrence of this scope can hardly be summed up by one definitive hypothesis. Other ideas
exist within the realm of plausibility. Human capitalist theorists, for instance, posit that
education is both a means for skilling workers and for workers to “signal their competence to
employers, particularly when recruitment entailed uncertainties about adequate technical
performance” (Brown 4). They then proceed to claim education expands as a result of
increased competition for this signaling. Parts of their theory may seem valid, but under closer
scrutiny become inadequate. In reality, education is a poor means of skilling workers, as has
been heavily discussed. Furthermore, employers do not typically use degrees as signals of
competence, but rather as a filter of sorts, cutting down large numbers of applicants to a
manageable selection pool (Brown 4). Degrees are often also used to ensure cultural
homogeneity. Weber’s idea is that “educational credentials [are] essentially cultural-political
constructions of…organizational loyalty that [bear] little relationship to the technical demands of
modern work” (Brown 3). He goes on to say education is a means of “[encapsulating] workers
in capitalist ideology, and credentials are meaningless to workers’ own interests” (Brown 3).
Essentially, Weber claims employers use credentials and education to improve efficiency by
reducing conflict from differences. Another inadequacy of the signaling-human capitalist theory
regards a plausible explanation for the inflation of credentialed jobs. The theory only explains a
need for credentials, not an expansion thereof (Brown 5).
It is, of course, difficult to fully assert the validity of Weber’s theory, as it is by no means
definitive, and certainly involves conjecture. With an American workforce of perhaps one
hundred million workers, the dynamics of the need for credentials cannot possibly be reduced to
one theory. In the case of Weber’s ideas, some of them have become a bit archaic, having
been formulated in the first half of the twentieth century. His claim that the elite drive credential
inflation still holds weight, though in recent years I would expect the elite’s monopoly has
become diminished, especially considering increases in financial aid aimed at lower social
classes. Perhaps a better potential cause is democracy.
At the turn of the twentieth century, less than ten percent of the population had
graduated from high school. The diploma was, as Collins said, “the badge of middle-class
respectability” (“The Dirty Little Secret of Credential Inflation” 2). All the way up until World War
II, one could get a perfectly well-paying job without so much as a G.E.D. Indeed, almost eighty-
percent of CEOs in the 1940s hadn’t even attended college (Weyrich 2). Something obviously
changed, however, as now only ten percent of the population does not graduate from high
school. The diploma has become “little more than a ticket to a lottery in which one can buy a
chance at a college degree -- which itself is becoming a ticket to a yet higher-stakes lottery”
(“The Dirty Little Secret of Credential Inflation” 2). The impetus for this change is clear: the
aforementioned ideals of democracy. For some time, the government has been stressing high-
school completion, with don’t-drop-out campaigns and legislation promoting equality of
achievement. A recent manifestation presented itself in the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act.
Resulting from the women suffrage movement in the 1910s and the civil rights movement in the
1960s, affirmative action legislation has likewise pushed achievement, accenting minority
success. As Collins said in “Credential Inflation and the Future of Universities”, “education is…
legitimated as democratic equality of opportunity (29).
To better understand the effect of democracy, let us first begin with a rudimentary
discussion of the dynamics of credential inflation, nothing complex but merely a near reiteration
of common sense. As the amount of people who earn each successive degree or level of
education increases, the intrinsic value of that degree proportionally decreases. We cannot
expect every person who earns a given certification to receive the same level of job as the next
person. For instance, if there are one thousand jobs requiring a bachelor’s in chemical
engineering, then clearly only one thousand people will receive a job. Even if one thousand and
fifty people receive the chemical engineering degree, only one thousand of them will get the job.
It then follows that competition will exist, and in some way applicants are going to have to put
themselves in front of the others. To succeed in this, many will continue their education, until
they are conferred Master’s in Chemical Engineering. Newly bestowed with this credential, they
will then be able to apply with a substantial advantage over the other applicants. Slowly, more
of the jobs will be obtained by Master’s degree holders, as the displaced fifty try to pry their way
back in by receiving their own Master’s degrees. Following this logic, the job will eventually
require a Master’s degree, as no reason will exist to hire bachelor’s holders if a surplus of
Master’s holders is present. Thus, credential inflation occurs.
Democracy tells us that everyone is equal. To quote the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
With this, the idea is had that we should strive to give everyone equal opportunity.
Education is an obvious extension of this. Apart from menial labor and positions behind the
cash register and under the golden arches, nearly every job requires education to some extent.
If we offer everyone education, the theory goes, these ideals of democracy will approach
realization. Of course, this is far from the truth. Along this line, Randall Collins said, “Imagine if
we said we want every school in the country to have a championship football team, that every
team should win 90 percent of its games. People would recognize the flaw in that thinking. But
we say that about education all the time” (Weyrich 2). Pushing education for all has a sort of
“dog-chasing-its-tail quality to it”; clearly we cannot expect everyone to be wealthy and
successful (Weyrich 2). All this does is up the number of credentialed workers without upping
the number of credentialed jobs. No one’s income will actually increase. And so democracy
drives credential inflation: it pushes more into successively higher levels of education, thus
devaluing each successive level, in turn forcing jobs to require higher and higher certification.
The only noteworthy counter-causal argument, in regard to democracy as a drive of
credential inflation, has already been easily refuted: the idea that a more technological society
requires more education. Aside from this, no one in the sociological community really opposes
this idea. Other theories exist, of course. Some posit, for example, that credential inflation has
developed naturally as a macroeconomic counterbalance to unemployment and
underemployment, allowing for a ten percent reduction of the workforce. This theory and
countless other minute suggestions of potential causes are all valid in their own, but it would
hardly be practical to mention all of them. Instead, the two most prominent, and most widely
accepted, hypotheses have been presented.
The proof and causes of credential inflation now stand on fairly strong grounds, or at least as
strong of grounds on which an uninformed, high school senior can place them. However, the
importance of this phenomenon has yet to be discussed. Credential inflation, one finds with a
little research, has startling implications for society. Collins claims “most problems of
contemporary universities are connected to credential inflation” (“The Dirty Little Secret of
Credential Inflation” 1). If this statement is true, we have an obligation to stop credential
inflation where it stands. To do so, solutions must be formulated, but before solutions can be
made the exact impacts of credential inflation must be known.
David Labaree said “the relentless urge to get ahead has undermined the opportunity to get
an education” (Weyrich 4). Both Randall Collins and Dr. Ivar Berg attribute credential inflation to
this same urge, a utilitarian student mentality that getting degrees from distinguished institutions
is the best way to get a good job. Along the way, students neglect actual learning, the
opportunity to improve themselves. Thus, universities have been transformed into tollbooths of
sorts on the highway to future success, a mere stopping point requiring one to dump out his
pockets so he can continue on to prosperity. Intellectualism has dwindled as a result.
“Humanistic culture has become very nearly the exclusive province of professional teachers of
the humanities,” Collins said in his “The Late Twentieth-Century Crisis” (25). It has come to the
point that very few students go to college to experience what college should be, a chance to
improve themselves, to cultivate their minds, to broaden their perspectives. Rather, they grind
through as quickly as possible, taking courses that will give them an easy A. So, in a sense,
credential inflation is undermining culture.
This “relentless urge to get ahead” has further ramifications. Achievement levels and
“high school…test scores have fallen precipitously”, as students focus on the immediate quarter
and semester grade, not the long-term retention and understanding (“The Late Twentieth-
Century Credential Crisis” 25). Resultantly, the true purpose of education is neglected in place
of an impressive transcript. Grade inflation has also ensued. As Collins explains, “the
prevailing ethos is for faculty members to treat students sympathetically to try to get them
through what the professors recognize as a competitive grind” (“The Dirty Little Secret…” 11).
Professors are generally aware that in other classes and other universities students are
receiving higher grades than they deserve and if, as a professor, one doesn’t do the same, his
or her students will be disadvantaged in the job market.
In the job market itself, efficiency has declined and knowledge applicable to jobs has
been replaced with airy, insubstantial degrees. A study published by the American Bar
Association showed findings that many new lawyers are unfamiliar with daily procedures such
as drafting contracts and court-required forms (Weyrich 3). This has been discussed heavily;
college provides little or no real, useful knowledge for jobs. The reason for this cause is much
the same as the dwindling of intellectual culture: students are largely becoming more focused
on receiving the degree, not the information. Furthermore, the education system is seeking
ways to confer credentials to larger amounts of people with less money and in the process is
missing some of the important information.
Educational expansion, an effect already extensively discussed, is worth mentioning
briefly. As has already been established, credential inflation requires more education and the
system expands resultantly. However, one object previously unnoted is the cause-sustaining
nature of education expansion. While started by the need for credentials in the first place,
education expansion now serves as push for further inflation. With more universities, more
propaganda and advertisements pushing people continue with education are present. Hence, it
fuels itself, pushing more people into the credential competition.
Elsewhere, many students are now amassing large amounts of debt, often owing
upwards of one hundred thousand dollars. From this, numerous other society-plaguing trends
have stemmed. To provide a seemingly unrelated example, the frequency of birth defects has
risen. Mentioning this in relation to higher student debt may seem in all respects absurd, but
with some analysis, the link becomes clear. With higher debt, many are reluctant to start a
family, knowing the financial burden children can be and worrying they may not be able to fully
provide. Families, then, start later, and people have kids in their thirties and forties, rather than
their twenties. Studies have shown that the later in life one reproduces, the greater the chance
for various genetic problems and birth defects, such as Down syndrome and cleft palates.
Considering all of this, it becomes alarmingly apparent that credential inflation’s dark fingers
have reached even the furthest niches of society.
One other primary effect remains, (many others exist but are inconsequential to this
paper’s topic), one that has already been heavily discussed not in relation to the consequences
of credential inflation but the causes: social stratification. The more credentials and education
required, the less likely the poor are to move upwards out of stagnation. If this continues,
classes will soon be cemented into permanence, no hope for upward mobility and no fear for the
opposite. And a society without social mobility is a society without democracy, without equality,
without freedom, and without the cherished American Dream. In this respect, credential inflation
is destroying the ideals America was founded on, the thought that anyone can succeed, anyone
can go from rags to riches. With this debasement, we are risking all America stands for. For
this reason, it is so important that we stop credential inflation and find solutions to these
problems.
Randall Collins himself is quoted as having said “I make no claim to solve [this]
ideological problem.” He is the leading expert in the field, having devoted most of his life to the
topic. How then, can I, a high-school senior who has studied the topic for two weeks without
any of my own research, hope to provide any helpful insight? The truth is, this topic is so
complex and vast that any solution I deign to present will likely be so shallow and naive in scope
that if actually enacted, would only worsen the situation. This limitation in mind, I will discuss
several possible courses of action, ranging from extreme to mild, and their implications.
The first view at hand is credential capitalism, with the belief that individuals should
endeavor to attain credentials in order to remain competitive. This view provides no solution,
ignoring that such behavior further induces inflation, and even suggests that credentials are a
necessary part of competition in a free market system. Obviously, this will not work (“The Late
Twentieth-Century Credential Crisis” 15).
On the opposite side is credential socialism, holding that government should intervene to
more evenly distribute education. This is an effort to shore up social stratification and
inequalities in the system by pushing for more education for minorities, thus minimizing the
negative effects of credential inflation. However, it really only results in further credential
inflation in which the rich still end up on top. To provide an example, initiatives of this sort, such
as federal student aid and Pell grants, only go so far and the elite remain the only one’s capable
of paying for the needed education (Collins 17).
Still on the left is credential radicalism, advocating so-called free-schools and de-
schooling. Community and hands-on schools like Montessori are a manifestation of this. At a
lower level, this method may prove useful. Many notable success stories with alternative
learning are a testament to this. In preparing for jobs, however, the best method is still on-the-
job training. Perhaps if universally instituted, this proposal could work, but the transition would
be economically infeasible. If partially instituted, the transition would work financially, but the
external system of credentials would reject any of the students that had gone through free-
schools. Collins largely finds this proposal inadequate (Collins 19).
These previous views on credential inflation have all been inadequate or unreasonable.
Randall Collins only considers two views sufficient, the first being credential Keynesianism.
Keynesianism realizes the negative implications of credential inflation, but nevertheless
attempts to continue the system. Proponents of this school of thought argue the risk of future
inflation is acceptable in order to maintain the economy. If credentials were suddenly ended,
millions of previously occupied workers would suddenly flood the market, thereby worsening
unemployment and throwing the economy into a recession (Collins 20). Collins finds this view
perhaps the most reasonable view, but not the best. Credential abolitionism
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