A conservative U.S. Secretary of Education and a progressive teachers’ union president don’t often agree. But Secretary Linda McMahon told Congress a four-year college “is not for everyone,” and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said much the same in The New York Times.
Both are signaling the same shift away from “college for all” toward a question that is far from settled: What should replace it? For high schools, many states have answered with industry-recognized credentials, or IRCs.
The logic is appealing. Give students a portable, employer-recognized signal of workplace skill, like a welding certification or a nurse aide credential, and they can enter the labor market with something to show for their years in school.
Just over half of states now build IRC attainment into accountability systems. Ohio pays school districts up to $725 for every high-demand credential a student earns. Credential earning has climbed as a result. Twenty-six percent of the class of 2024 earned one, versus 2 percent a decade earlier.
Two rigorous state studies complicate that celebration and point to a single conclusion useful for any K-12 leader building or expanding an IRC program. A credential works as one rung on a career ladder. It fails when a school or state treats it as the whole ladder.
