For more than a decade, education technology has tried to answer one question: can a cheaper, faster, online credential do the economic work of a traditional degree? The answers have come in waves. MOOCs (2012) promised free elite courses for everyone and found that most enrollees never finish. Mega-universities (WGU, SNHU, ASU Online) showed that online degrees can scale to well over 100,000 students each. Competency-based education unhooked credit from seat time. Coding bootcamps and income-share agreements promised job outcomes and ran into regulators. Industry certificates (Google, IBM, AWS) and skills-based hiring promised to make the degree optional, and have changed hiring less than promised. This section covers the mechanics and economics of each, the numbers that matter, and how an expert judges whether a credential is worth anything.
What the study covers
- 1Overview
- 2MOOCs
- 3Mega-universities and scaled online degrees
- 4Competency-based education (CBE)
- 5Bootcamps and income-share agreements
- 6Certificates, micro-credentials and the credential explosion
- 7Skills-based hiring
- 8Key numbers
- 9Landmark companies and cases
- 10Pitfalls
- 11How an expert thinks about it
Technical exhibits
Worked examples, checklists and case studies included with this study.
Mooc Funnel and Credential ROI Worked Example
A stylized MOOC funnel and its monetization, a learner's bootcamp ROI, and the implied cost of an ISA, all computed by script
Bootcamps and Isas Case Study
The rise and shakeout of coding bootcamps, Lambda School/BloomTech, and how regulators came to treat ISAs as loans
Credential Value Checklist
Questions for learners, employers, funders and investors evaluating a non-degree or online credential