Talk:Credential inflation

Credential inflation
"Credential Inflation" Gsmcghee (talk) 00:59, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

scholar.google.com has 511 hits for "credential inflation," and google.com has more than 8,000 listed. This article fills an important gap, since there is nothing on "Credential inflation" at wiki.

Gsmcghee (talk) 01:23, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions
--b_calder (talk) 14:46, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Categories of Academic, Trade, Professional, and Licensure perhaps?

I am interested in the development of professional certifications created by software and hardware vendors. These certificates are in demand by employers but guarantee only a minimum level of competence rather than setting a high standard (opinion only). They may turn out to be merely a way for a company to (1) create apparent value for their product and (2) generate additional revenue streams.

>>I have limited the definition to secondary and post-secondary education in the US, where there is some similarity with your (1) and (2) re: college presidents and administrators expanding their programs.

Would you consider adding an explanation of how the credential becomes devalued, i.e. new or more extensive degree program. The glut of bachelors degree holders makes a masters more desirable in lower grade teaching while the glut of masters degree holders makes the doctoral degree holders more valuable in higher education.

>>This is what needs to be studied more closely, considering the amount of public funds being poured into it.

Maybe an example in the medical field such as adding the physician's assistant license? I can ask a friend who is involved in discussions of this sort of thing at a medical school to see if the example is appropriate. The role of legislation covering continuing education for professional license holders surely contributes to credential inflation in some measurable way as well.

>> Apropos of this, Carnegie Foundation just recommended that nurses be required to have the BSN before working. Again, why this is happening, is not well understood -- especially in something as complicated as the medical field (at least in the US).

Also mention might be made of the limiting effect of governmental licensing. For instance a Professional Engineer designation, although subject to change within the license designation, is a standard the public understands and accepts. (I wonder how the profession of teaching is helped or harmed by licensing or if licensing is a reflection of a public attitude by way of legislative action.)

>>Again, this is slightly outside the scope of higher ed degrees -- although the proliferation of certificates and licenses clearly mirrors them.

Is there a study that assigns a relative "strength" to inflationary effects over time? It seems to me that if we co-opt an economic term, we should strive to make it behave in a similar way.

>>Well, I linked to monetary "inflation." The ACTA article attempts just such a quantification, as does the Wessel WSJ article, but to a lesser degree.

"no end in sight" creates an implication about the future that will have to be edited if the system changes. I suggest taking it out. ("Climbing college tuition and fees (colleges charge what the market will bear, and there is no end in sight"))

>>OK, I fixed this.

"resulting in smaller families" Is there evidence of this? Smaller families tend to be correlated with longevity and access to healthcare.

>>No hard numbers on this. Chris Rasmussen stated the argument before the US Department of Education hearings on student loans, and Mayor Richard Daley also stated it publically.

"higher levels of birth defects" - change to "higher chance of birth defects due to childbirth delays…"?

>>I edited this.

"-- Increases in high school dropout rates" needs citation.

>>I provided a reference here.

"poorly paid adjuncts;" needs citation to a definition/dictionary because a casual reader may not realize it is ED-speak for low prestige part-time work.

>>>Ok. I linked this to adjunct professors, and added "part-time" as an adjectival modifier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gsmcghee (talk • contribs) 00:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Grade inflation needs a major section up in the body of description. The relative importance to the general public is such that the relationship needs to be an "in your face" sort of thing. For instance, as I read the page, I wondered when you would mention it.

>>>OK. I added a ref that makes the cause (credential inflation) and effect (grade inflation) explicit. Part of the problem, I think, is the lack of theoretical depth in the Wiki "grade inflation" article itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gsmcghee (talk • contribs) 00:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

--b_calder (talk) 14:46, 26 December 2009 (UTC) Gsmcghee (talk) 03:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

"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, the high school diploma barely qualifies the graduate for manual or menial service work."

Actually I don't agree with this at all. This is probably the worst example of credential inflation because inflation assumes that the degree maintains the same academic rigor (more or less), just that there are many more graduates, therefore the value of the degree declines because the number of holders increases. However, the academic rigor of the high school diploma has in fact sharply declined. A high school diploma in 1900 would be equivalent to at least an associate's and quite possibly a bachelor's degree today. This is due to "dumbing down" in the academic world which, rather than so-called inflation, has denigrated the value of a high school diploma such that it is now barely enough to get a job at McDonald's. Just take a look at the curriculum of the local high school today versus what it was in 1900 or 1920 and you'll see what I'm talking about.Tpkatsa (talk) 21:40, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion for Global Perspective
I noticed that this article is marked as needing citations for the facts it presents. I'm new to the Wikipedia community, so I thought I'd add my suggestion to the talk page and get some feedback before editing the page itself. Let me know what you think and if this fits into the article.

Qualification inflation, as it is also known, is recognized as stemming from young people's increased length of involvement in higher education. This has resulted in low-level jobs that were once available to those who didn't finish high school now expecting graduates.

Plumbla (talk) 15:52, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merger with Academic inflation
Moved to Grade inflation. Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   05:16, 19 May 2015 (UTC)