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A modern and futuristic credential is currently something that is rather traditional. There are various changes happening in professional environments that have caused credentials to be simplified, concise, time efficient, and affordable.
Part of this is that nearly 100 million people in the USA have a college degree up to a bachelor or at least attended college. This means they were admitted to a college and completed a few semesters. Even if they decided not to complete their program due to budgeting concerns or time commitment, their transcript can demonstrate what the future workplace may look like when combined with university graduates and transcripts from middle school and high school.
Most programs are currently focused on the bachelor degree and a masters degree for supervisors. There is a debate about whether independent workers should have a bachelor degree only, a bachelor and a masters, or a professional certification.
That debate will be ongoing but the majority has decided that bachelor degrees make sense for the future considering automation and the new workplace context that a job role lasts 5-6 years on average for most people.
These are the Most popular and relevant credentials for starting a new job role:
Older credentials like the MA, Phd, MD, JD, MBA, ED, OD, DO, DP, or the DBA may no longer make sense to people going to college for the first time or those under 50 unless they were already working towards those credentials in a career plan.
For example, a BGS with an Optometry credential is seen as more modern than an MD, OD and any bachelor degree with quantitative and qualitative reasoning implies a Phd. That's only two courses instead of 4 years of study. Policies like these are due to time efficiency and the updated career specifications.
In the past, a person may have gone to school for 8-12 years studying medical practices and participating in informational or experimental research before becoming a doctor at the age of 32 and making a commitment to stay in that job role until the age of 65 or older. Today, a high school student may be focused on getting good grades on biology, anatomy, chemistry and getting a part time medical assistant job while still in high school. Then completing a bachelor in biology and working as a doctor for a few years.
Considering a bachelor degree with experience in medical practice and research might be completed by 22-24 years old, a second phase career step might be working as a psychologist with an updated bachelor of psychology. Currently, this would not take another 4 years anymore. With the latest updated policies, a second bachelor can take as little as 1 year and approximately 1-2 years on average.
This shows human development is now keeping pace with technology and their advancements. Consider that currently a 32 year old might now have 5-6 years experience as a doctor and 5-6 years experience as psychologist. A next step might not require a credential update, or it might, there are often career paths that allow breaks from school and learning for a time. For example, regional nutritionist or informatics technician might be two jobs that may only require a short series of workshops to switch careers. It would be up to the person if they wanted another bachelor or work certificate to reflect their current job role.
This would take a person through nearly twenty years of working and it addresses issues like boredom, career stagnation, and professional development.
Associate degrees are normally considered advanced placement and are reflective of both program requirements and homework quality. In the past they had a non defined status for most people and the more popular associates were computer based, legal based, or media based. Today, the latest associates that are available are for engineering (AE), psychology (AP), business administration (ABA), and for legal or paralegal studies (varies).
For those that aren't able to take too much time off from work, college certificates are currently available at both the associate and bachelor level, and at the masters level. They normally take 1-2 semesters to complete and are stackable into a degree program. These work well for people that are interested in school but have to focus on work right away. They can also work well to qualify for an additional job role or to add a specialization to a program plan.
Newer credentials focus on performance, job role, and intuitive representation of a persons workplace contributions. They demonstrate a datapoint on a career chart and may not be representative of job title. For example, an associate of IT might be in the business administration department and an associate of psychology might actually work in HR instead of a hospital or clinic.
There is a trend for those with advanced degrees to obtain a credential that is representative of future goals based on majority votes. A person with a JD can get an LLM or they can get another doctorate called a SJD and those with existing degrees that are looking for a career change can get various legal credentials the most popular being bachelor of law, master of legal studies, or associate of paralegal studies. These can be combined with a professional membership or law certification. One of the most voted new credentials is courtroom representative that does not require a JD or Masters degree.
Attending college has become more affordable and is going towards mostly self pay and eventually payment plans at the school. When the college programs were restarted in the US, a bachelor degree cost $80k to $110k dollars. Today, those costs are closer to $40k to $50k for the first degree and additional degrees cost closer to $15k to $35k. While the college loans are still around, they are projected to eventually wind down. This is a reason that financial management and personal budgeting is now taught in high school and part time jobs during the last few years of high school are encouraged.
Industry certifications often compliment a credentialing program or have a specific significance. For example, someone with a Bachelor of Psychology that is APA certified might have a different job role than someone with a Bachelor of Psychology and a Nutritional Development Certificate. In the past, certificates were often tested for by private industry but many have expressed a desire for the colleges to issue certificates and for the industry certificates to be issued in limited quantities. This is an area of future development, that normally requires a proposal review, and a majority vote.