Mega Universities, Nanodegrees, and the Digital Disruption in Higher Education

1. Introduction

Traditional universities are facing a huge threat from exogenous innovators who have perfected the idea of conceiving and developing various kinds of micro-credentials that are stackable, reconfigurable, and storable in the blockchains (Khatun et al. 2021). The continued relevance of universities in the future will depend partially on how they respond to this new reality, the nature of which is still unfolding. Potentially, university diplomas have not yet lost their sheen; it is just their structure and orientation that need to be adapted (El-Amin and George 2020). Innovative universities have come up with different solutions to avert the crisis and find a new rationale for their existence, offering nanodegree programs built around micro-credentials being one of those solutions. Condensed, competency-based, and employer-preferred, learners could pursue nanodegrees with an extreme level of flexibility. In fact, the definition of what constitutes a college degree has been changing over the last decade, and wider acceptance of nanodegrees could be a culmination point of all this flux. In this paper, an attempt is made to review the literature and present scholarly arguments in favor of and against micro-credentials.

2. Background

Microcredentials offer personalization, competency, flexibility, portability, cost efficiency, time efficiency, and collaboration, among other benefits (Hunt et al. 2020). The praxis driving the movement is that “less is more”: In other words, education should address specific problem contexts, nothing less and nothing more (Aguilar and George 2021; Woods and Woods 2021). The advocates of the movement highlight the employability of those who earn micro-credentials as its primary attraction. The opposition to micro-credentialing comes from various quarters, the predominant of which is that it reduces the vision of higher education and modern universities. In this regard, the stackability of micro-credentials offers a creative middle ground. According to the US Department of Labor, stackable credentials are “credentials that can be accumulated over time to build up an individual’s qualifications and help them to move along a career pathway or up a career ladder to different and potentially higher-paying jobs” (Bolin 2011). In other words, purposefully stacked micro-credentials may constitute (a more desirable) equivalent of traditional degree programs (Selvaratnam and Sankey 2021).

Historically, universities have offered short-term certificate programs in various fields (Ellis et al. 2016). University certificate programs issued through extension offices or executive development cells were professionally tuned but not stackable upon each other to form what could be called a degree program. These certificates remained largely invalid as “credits” (Bolin 2011). Even when credits began to be granted more lately, there lacked a streamlined pathway as to how such credits could be stacked up to seek a diploma.

Some of the new entrants in the higher education marketplace have capitalized upon the huge demand for short courses (Lewis and Lodge 2016). Current consumer demand is driven primarily by high-tech businesses that need people with specialized skills in well-defined micro-domains, and this applies to freshers and also to those already employed (Lindstrom and Dyjur 2017). In this space, online education platforms such as Udacity, Coursera, Udemy, and Lynda have far outpaced our universities and trade schools (Liyanagunawardena et al. 2013; Pappano 2012).

3. The Case for Micro-Credentials

What we see is an ever-increasing size and scope for the micro-credentialing educational model, according to Liyanagunawardena et al. (2013). Microcredential seekers are not a minority of nontraditional learners anymore (Rodriguez 2013). Students who were extremely competent in certain specific areas but did not have the motivation or the ability to gain general education thrived in this environment, and several of them even received placements in reputed multinational corporations. An increasing crowd of teenagers and those in their early twenties seek them for various reasons (Bossu and Fountain 2015). Even when these credentials are not needed for a job, employers often consider them as a proxy for an individual’s adaptability. At the other extreme, refresher credentialing is sometimes expected of the employees, even for keeping their current jobs!

Some argue that, given the ephemerality, transience, and commercial nature of skills being imparted, it may be prudent for universities to stay away from this (Schroeder et al. 2015). The counter question is, have not our universities already moved in that direction—by offering specialized degree programs in technologies that are blips and behavioral solutions that are fads? Additionally, if universities cannot provide some of the most pressing needs of the industry in the present, they might well be shying away from one of their core responsibilities to the communities that let them sustain themselves in the present.

Universities self-isolating themselves from accepting stackable credentials will not hurt these credential issuers or seekers as much as those universities themselves (Vardi 2012). Employers are more willing to financially support their employees when they seek these credentials than when they seek a four-year undergraduate degree or a two-year master’s degree. Financial aid providers have also become more open to supporting students earning credentials that open up doors to immediate employment. While there is hype and craze around these indeed, the objective value proposition too should not be underestimated (Oliver 2021).

4. Conclusions

The still-emerging micro-credentials field is symptomatic of a “strategic reset” in higher education (McGreal and Olcott 2022). It exposes the deficiencies of what critics call jumbo-sized degree programs that do not respond well to the abruptly changing competency requirements of the contemporary workplace. The COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, made many of us wonder: Is spending four or more precious years at a stretch within the walls of a college a good use of the limited time in our limited life span? No wonder, despite the downturn in traditional college enrollments, the rush to attend short courses peaked during the pandemic (Boud and Jorre de St Jorre 2021).

The promise of the micro-credential revolution is education for everyone, as and when they want it, at an affordable cost. Yet, despite the lofty promises of micro-credentials to offer an egalitarian ground for everyone to learn, it is not primarily the downtrodden and the disadvantaged that make the best use of them (Bossu and Fountain 2015; George et al. 2022). A vast number of massive open online course (MOOC) participants already have college degrees, are well off, currently employed, and live in thriving urban centers. Those needing these credentials the most are not targeted by the MOOC providers because they have no special incentive for the same.

Since MOOC credentials do not automatically stack up and result in college diplomas (unless some accredited colleges transfer and absorb these into their programs), such students do not find sufficient value in them. Accredited universities pitching into this space and offering stackable micro-credentials and nanodegrees could ignite demand from large segments of individuals who want a university degree based on the specialized skills they attained. Herein lies one part of the answer to the question that has baffled our university leaders for some time: Are micro-credentials the right thing to pursue in our universities?

That said, if universities decide to plunge into the micro-credentialing business, that should not be for the hype of it. It is important we recognize that universities have a vision greater than awarding gig qualifications for the gig economy. More exploration is needed to devise structures and processes for it that elevate it above the instrumentalist logic that currently drives it.