Will a Flood of Credentials Threaten the Four-Year Degree?

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

1:21 - Creating a Way to Measure Real-Time Labor Market Data

3:15 - Charting an Explosion of Non-Degree Credentials

7:14 - Helping Consumers Find Which Credentials Have Value

11:36 - What is the ROI of Non-Degree Credentials?

12:51 - How Could the Data on These Credentials Be Improved?

14:20 - The Challenge of Getting Data to Consumers

18:38 - Will Better Data Push Providers to Improve Degree Offerings?

20:52 - How Will Non-Degree Credentials Impact the Four-Year Degree?

24:25 - Sponsor Break

25:38 - Why Creating Measurement Tools Takes So Long

27:49 - New Credentials Could Increase the Value of the Four-Year Degree

30:02 - Providing Data Doesn’t Mean Students Will Use It

35:06 - Addressing the ‘AI Paralysis' in Hiring

39:53 - Lightning Round With Matt Sigelman

Relevant Links

“Counting Credentials 2025 Report,” by the nonprofit Credential Engine.

Credential Value Index Navigator by The Burning Glass Institute.

Education Quality Outcome Standards (EQOS), a collaboration of Jobs for the Future and The Burning Glass Institute.

Transcript

Michael Horn

Jeff, as you know, ever since I really got into the field of higher education innovation, I've been obsessed with what "value" means in this field to different stakeholders and how to think about and measure those outcomes.

Jeff Selingo

Yeah, Michael. And today, we get to talk to a repeat guest on Future U, Matt Sigelman of the Burning Glass Institute, who will join us to talk about the labor market value of non-degreed credentials and in many ways, the future of the four year degree and how we think about that. 

So that's ahead on this episode of Future U.

Sponsor

This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium, a mission-driven nonprofit committed to improving learning and training systems to better serve learners from low-income backgrounds. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org. Subscribe to Future U wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoy the show, share it with your friends so others can discover the conversations we're having about higher education.

Michael Horn

I'm Michael Horn.

Jeff Selingo

And I'm Jeff Selingo.

Michael Horn

Welcome everyone. We're back. Jeff and I are excited for today's conversation. 

A reminder, wherever you listen to us or if you watch us on YouTube, make sure you subscribe. 

And, Jeff, you mentioned it upfront there in that introduction. We have a repeat guest in Future U. We don't do that all that often, but it felt worth it on this occasion because as you know, from a policy perspective, labor market outcomes and the value of degrees, credentials, these non-degreed credentials. Right? It's an important topic that's getting increasing attention. Everyone's asking big questions. Non-degree credentials in particular have been exploding over the last decade. 

So here we are. We wanted to dig deeper to understand what does this all mean and where is it going?

Jeff Selingo

And there's really no one better to turn to on this topic, Michael, than Matt Sigelman, who was on Future U way back in 2021 as well. 

You know, Matt literally helped create this field of real-time labor market data from his perch running Burning Glass Technologies for over two decades. And he sold that, Burning Glass Technologies, to Lightcast, and then he formed the Burning Glass Institute where he's president today. It's a nonprofit kind of at the intersection of learning and work, and it focuses on data-driven research and practice on the future of work and workers. It really gives us that kind of real-time pulse on the labor market. 

And frankly, Michael, there are a few, several other research topics we could have talked to Matt about, but we chose this particular strand because of the gathering momentum behind these topics of non-degree credentials. 

And to be honest with you, there's really no one better than Matt who helps translate this for the average listener as you're going to hear in our interview today. 

And so with that, let's welcome Matt back to Future U. 

Welcome, Matt.

Matt Sigelman

Great to see you.

Jeff Selingo

So, Matt, you know, a little over a decade ago, a lot of non-degree providers started getting a lot of attention. I'm talking about things like coding bootcamp providers, and then there were these Google career certificates and many more. 

You know, non-degree credentials have long been part of the job and educational markets, but there really was an explosion in them, it seemed. And, of course, many colleges kinda got in the act as well. Is that an accurate reading of history? 

Can you  give us a sense of just how big these non-degree credentials have gotten and sort of the scope of what we're talking about here from certificates to badges to other kinds of certifications? 

Matt Sigelman

So you're absolutely right that there's been a Cambrian moment in the world of non-degree credentials over the last decade in particular, maybe decade and a half. I think there's a bunch of things that have driven it. Certainly greater focus on connections to work, greater increasing pace of skill change. That means that people need to be able to acquire new skills on the fly. 

And the Internet was a key enabling technology. You didn't need to go to a campus or an office park or to, you know, Joe's Training Academy at night. Right? This is the correspondence school on steroids. 

Jeff Selingo

So, Matt, it also seemed that these non-degree credentials took off big-time from a student interest perspective, you know, during the pandemic. Students didn't want to incur the cost of a longer degree program, and they seemed to gravitate to shorter programs to acquire discrete skills and credentials. You know, has that movement continued? And if so, has there been any concentration in that enrollment at certain schools or certain providers, or is this really a fragmented market?

Matt Sigelman

So some of it has certainly come back to Earth. 

You know, people were sitting home during the pandemic with not lots to do. And, you know, when we weren't busy supervising homework on Zoom, maybe it was a good opportunity to learn a thing or two. 

But I think what we have seen nonetheless, while there's been, you know, more of a leveling of demand, certainly the demand is much higher today than it was pre-pandemic. People got used to these forms of communication. You know, we work on Zoom. We can learn in virtual ways. 

And I think we're also seeing a period of increasing volatility in the labor market. People need to be able to, again, acquire skills in order to stay relevant. People are worried about an AI future. 

And in all those cases, it says, we need to be able to, to be able to to find our way to new skills. 

The problem here, of course, is to put those two forces together. Right? A Cambrian … more of an imperative to be able to find skills and a Cambrian moment, where there's just so many of them. 

And just to put in a number on that. Right? The Credential Engine project has cataloged 1.7 million credentials. I always point out to people that there are 177,000 head words in the Oxford English Dictionary, so there's literally 10 times as many credentials out there as there are words in the English language to describe them. 

And so when you put out you know, when you've got that many options competing for our attention and yet a significant need and priority that people are placing on finding ways to learn, it creates a ton of confusion.

Michael Horn

Yeah. And that's where I wanna lean into, Matt, because I'm hearing agility, convenience, fragmentation, overwhelming. 

I wanna pull us back again a decade ago because as you all remember when bootcamps were all the rage at that time, regardless of their underlying business models, there was a lot of talk about getting them into federal financial aid programs, and this precedes the short-term Workforce Pell conversations really. There was this experimental sites program launched, EQIP, which would allow effectively bootcamps, but other providers also to partner with colleges. 

And out of that, as you know, I set up this thing called the Education Quality Outcome Standards board, EQOS, which was designed to create a consistent way to measure the outcomes from these education programs. And as listeners of the podcast know, EQOS went through a number of hands, but then you, it seems, have really taken hold of the underlying methodology recently, the part focused on ROI, and used all the data available to you to make it real and launch the Credential Value Index Navigator. 

So I'd love you to tell us what the navigator is, how it works, what you're measuring in it, how it can start to contribute to people finding credentials of value.

Matt Sigelman

So first I just want to tip my hat — more than tip my hat, raise a glass maybe to to you, Michael — because EQOS, it was a really revolutionary step. This was, you know, an effort to really articulate what makes a credential valuable, and how do we create a set of metrics for evaluating that. 

Now, you know, one step at a time. I think in EQOS version 1.0, right, we still needed to look program by program, and we still needed to rely on a lot of the data that providers themselves report. And I think we all know the kind of both of those provide constraints. Right? So the one simply says, 'Okay. You know, one by one to get to 1.7 million will take a long time. And the other says, you know, the data that providers offer is not always very reliable. 

You know, what we've done to power the Credential Value Index is to identify a bunch of sets of data that allow us to look to apply the kind of metrics that EQOS conceived, but to do it more empirically. You know, one of the underlying datasets, and there's a whole bunch of models here. I won't bore everyone with them. There's 42 of them, which the only way I can remember that is because there's 10 more than Baskin Robbins. 

What we're effectively doing, one of the core datasets here, and I talked about empirical evidence, we've created a data set that tracks the whole career histories of 65 million U.S. workers. It's about 40% of the U.S. workforce. Over 10 million of them have reported a credential. 

And so what you can actually do is say, 'Okay. When somebody earned this credential relative to people who look like them, were working in the same occupation, were demographically similar, etc, same level educational attainment. When that person acquired that credential, did it change the slope of their career?' 

Remember that whole algebra II, Y equals MX+B. Right? Your career has a slope. And when you acquire a credential, it should change the slope. 

Fundamentally, put 42 different measures aside, there's one of three things it should do for you. It should either help you enter a job. It should move you up in the job you're in. Or it should get you paid more money. And that's fundamentally what the index is measuring. 

The navigator puts that data times 23,000 different credentials in the hands of learners on the one side. You know, 'What should I learn? What credentials should I earn?' In the hands of educators, 'What credentials should we offer?' In the hands of employers to say, 'Which credentials should we honor?' And the hands of policymakers and philanthropy to say, 'Which credentials should we fund?'

Michael Horn

So what have you found about these non-degreed credentials, Matt? Like, do they have real value in the labor market? Does it vary based on field, provider, geography? 

What are the top-level findings, if you will?

Matt Sigelman

So there's a bunch of different ways that credentials can contribute value, even if we just sort of focus on those three I just mentioned. Right? A credential may not get you paid more, but if it helps you affect a career switch that you're pursuing, then it's still worth pursuing, you know, and it's still worth earning rather. 

But unfortunately, no matter how you slice it, when you put all three of those together, only one in three credentials is moving people ahead. Now, it's worth noting that only, you know, one in six actually produces a wage gain. I think that's traditionally when we think about ROI measures, we're talking about wage gain. And I think wage gain does understate, you know, double the number of credentials provide value as provide wage gain. But the glass is still two-thirds empty.

Michael Horn

Well, I mean, that's stark. One quick question, Jeff, just before you jump in, which is what are the current limitations then to the underlying data and measures? Or put differently, what would it take to make this be even more comprehensive beyond the 23,000 or whatever you named? And I'm sure you have efforts in place to start to expand this. So what does that look like to  get this even more robust?

Matt Sigelman

So this is very much, you know, kind of front and center for us right now. And  I think there's two ways that you approach it. One is being able to just collect more credentials, and we're undertaking a number of methods that are allowing us to have a far more comprehensive catalog so that we can provide a wider swath of observation. 

Twenty-three thousand is a lot and includes every certification in America. But when you get down to the level of, I wanna take, you know, this CDL program at Joe's Trucking Academy versus at Bob's Trucking Academy. Right? Like, we  wanna be able to say, ‘How does that weigh in?’ 

And so what we're also doing at the same time is developing a set of models that will allow us to triangulate to value so that we can provide a picture, an evidence-based view of, of outcomes for every credential, not just, you know, the ones where we can see hundreds of people having earned them.

Jeff Selingo

Matt, I think Michael and I are gonna fight over whose trucking academy between our trucking academies are better. But, I think I always wanted my own college. Now I think I want my own trucking company. 

But in all seriousness, you know, if very few certificates actually have value, that's like one thing. But then we actually need to get people to use this data. And it seems like that's part of the conversation that's happening right now around Workforce Pell because states are gonna have to get more active here both in setting up systems to measure, but also to be more proactive about which credentials and programs are eligible for federal dollars. 

So is that what's going to have to happen here? Is this government action to get this data to be used? Are financial institutions going to have to get involved? Like, what are you learning to actually get the data to be used by consumers?

Matt Sigelman

So first, by the way, just a data point, because, you know, I can't go anywhere without providing data points. But on why, exactly to your point, Jeff, we need to get these things used. 

There was a study that came out about a year ago, right, as sort of Workforce Pell was starting to trend toward its eventual passage from IES, Institute for Educational Sciences, which sort of ran a pilot on Workforce Pell. And where they sort of made something that looked like Workforce Pell funds available to people to pursue workforce training, non-degree workforce training. 

Here's what they found. They found that it was very successful in increasing access. A lot more people pursued it when they had access to those funds. And surprise, surprise, it did nothing to increase people's earnings. Right. 

So when we have options and, in fact, when we have more options and more capacity to pursue them and no nutrition label, we're just adding, you know, just throwing gasoline on the fire. 

So there's two ways that I think we get these kinds of things used. And one of them is a policy-driven one, which is around standards. What are how do we have more stringent standards standards for, and more evidence based and empirical standards for, what it is that we're going to fund?

And the other is about workflow. 

Now workflow sounds kinda nerdy. It is kinda nerdy. But think about it this way. We make decisions not in a vacuum, but we make them within a process. You know? And, right. Like, when we're reading a book, how many of us actually get off the sofa to go pick the dictionary off the shelf and look up a word. Right? You know? But if it's right there in the margin you might look it up. And so what we've been looking at are where are those places where decisions are getting made? 

Give you an example. If you're a a CTE administrator, a Career and Technical Education administrator, what used we used to call VoTech, you know, you're always trying to figure out what are the programs that we want to make sure that we have available to students so that they can earn what's called an industry-recognized credential. Now there's a big difference between industry-recognized and industry sought. How do you create the tool sets that help a CTE administrator evaluate the options that are there? 

Last year, there were 7,000 CTE students nationally who got the National Beef Council's safe beef handling certification. Right? How does that happen? It happens because there's no other source of information, and to the extent there is something out there, it's not where a CTE administrator is making a decision.

Jeff Selingo

So, Matt, will having all this information out there, this data out there, really push providers to improve in some meaningful way? Will it cause them to focus more on outcomes and ROI? 

It hasn't necessarily seemed to work that way in the rest of higher ed. Right? We've had ROI from the College Scorecard on a lot of degree programs that continue to exist even though their ROI wasn't very strong. So I'm a little skeptical, but we'd love to hear from you.

Matt Sigelman

So, look. Here's why I'm a little more optimistic. I think that the skepticism is not undeserved, but here's why I'm a little bit more optimistic. 

You know, what's driving a lot of students to pursue a college degree, by which I mean a four-year bachelor's degree, is that's become the middle class idol. We've come to believe that getting a bachelor's degree is the singular path to a middle class lifestyle in America in the 21st century. And so no matter what the nutrition label says, we just kinda believe that. 

And when it comes to what you're doing nights and weekends to earn some additional certification, that feels a little more optional. And, you know, I'm gonna be more likely to ask some of those kinds of questions. 

Now when we start to think about putting that together with the other side of the equation, how do we make sure that what the public will fund is tied to outcomes-based performance. And we start to look at how do we make sure that employers know what credentials to honor. Right? You know, I'm applying for a job, and it says I will earn this credential. 

Well, if that becomes speaking of workflow, that becomes embedded into an applicant tracking system. So employers being given a direct validation of how well it tells me ... That starts to create the kind of signals that potentially could lead to better outcomes all around.

Michael Horn

So, Matt, last question as we wrap up here. 

What does your crystal ball tell you? You just talked about how the nutrition labels for four year colleges versus now, you know, maybe people get a little pickier, it causes the market to rise in emphasis. So could all of this be leading to a big deemphasis of the four-year degree? Are we going back to a time where the, you know, that four-year residential college is reserved for sort of the elite? 

Or is this really more in your view what you and Jeff have actually written a lot about together that this is pairing these credentials with the degree, and it's the combination of the two perhaps that will be most powerful in the labor market over time. 

Where's this all headed?

Matt Sigelman

When you look at that one in three you know, what are the one in three credentials that are delivering value today? The majority, if not the significant majority of them, are ones that layer on top of a degree. 

So I think it's way too early to think about the demise of the degree. Skills-based hiring as a movement is premised on the notion that we can hire for skills instead of degrees. And, so far, that's not what we're actually seeing. We haven't seen big changes in employer behavior. 

But, again, this is part of why I'm hopeful because in no small part, that's because we haven't given employers anything else to hire for. We haven't provided any other kind of signals. So when we can have more effective signals, it means something. And I put that just, you know, with this AI moment. Employers are increasingly in paralysis today. The Internet made applying for a job a lot easier than it was before. Where the three of us are of an age where we still remember printing your resume on cotton bond paper and paying for a stamp. Right.

Jeff Selingo

At Kinko's. At Kinko's. Don't forget.

Matt Sigelman

At Kinko's. Yes. Yeah.

Michael Horn

It was FedEx. Yeah. It FedEx.

Matt Sigelman

A typewriter. Which led to some panics and some whiteout. No small amount of whiteout. 

But look when you … the Internet created a lot of headaches for employers because actually it meant there was a lot higher volume of applicants. AI has amped that up even more dramatically because not only has it made it easier to create a little agent that can apply to jobs for you, but you can also have the agent write your resume to customize it to the employer. And so it's harder and harder for employers to be able to screen. 

One of two things happens. Either we say, 'You know what? We're just going to go back to looking at networks and look at the name of your degree and those kinds of things.' 

Or in a less dystopian reality, we say, 'Okay, we need actually effective signals.' How do I know that somebody actually knows something? I can no longer look at experience because I can't really trust it. I can't look at your resume. Do you have a certification that means something? Can I assess you on the spot? 

So I think we're going to see a need for signals. That's gonna become not just casual, but a true imperative.

Jeff Selingo

Matt, always a fascinating conversation with you. You kinda bring both the data and the goods on with interesting storytelling. So appreciate you joining us on Future U, and we'll be right back after this break.

Sponsor

This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium, a mission-driven nonprofit committed to improving learning and training systems to better serve learners from low-income backgrounds. Ascendium envisions a world where low income learners succeed in postsecondary education and workforce training as paths to upward mobility. Ascendium's grantees are removing systemic barriers and helping to build evidence about what works so learners can achieve their career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org.

Michael Horn

Welcome back to Future U. 

Great conversation with Matt, always is. 

And we're gonna welcome him back, so stay tuned for the end of our conversation. He's gonna come back for a lightning round of fun questions. You're gonna get to know things about Matt. Maybe you weren't curious about, but actually were pretty fun answers. So hang tight for that. 

But I will say, Jeff, I appreciated Matt's overly generous praise of me and all the work we did back at Entangled of creating the EQOS standards originally over a decade ago, Jeff.

Jeff Selingo

Yeah. Michael, it just shows you how long change actually happens, and just how long it takes to get a measurement idea to actually an operational phase and operational system as we have done here.

Michael Horn

Yeah. You're right. And it's interesting when you say that, Jeff. I guess I just didn't have the patience or staying power personally to weather through that. 

But what Matt's done here and why I wanted him on so badly was he really is able, as you said, to start putting this into action. 

And the big unlock, I think, is he's not dependent on the providers, the schools themselves to connect these data streams, which was always a tough ask and frankly quite expensive for those individual schools. He's able to do it with these incredible data repositories that they have. 

And look, I'm sure they're incomplete, like in students aren't always reporting every single educational experience or, you know, Jeff's Trucking Company, School of Whatever, that they do, and I'm sure it can be better, but it it is an quite a start compared to where we were in this field. 

And I will say the findings are also sobering, but they feel realistic to me because as Matt said several times, you know, the barriers to entry to creating a program are so low thanks to digital or online learning. I mean, we sort of don't ... It was occurring to me as he was talking. This disruptive innovation of online learning really has brought forth just a flurry of programs. 

Our friend, John Katzman, who's been on the show before said to me the other day offhandedly, you know, higher ed has just 1% of market share of the lifelong learning market. And I thought it was like an apt turn of phrase. 

And then so we get this data. There's all these different providers that are hard to sort through. And as Matt said, three criteria is: help you get a job, move up in the job you're in, or get a better salary. And his quote, no matter how you slice it, you put all three of these together, only one in three credentials is helping people make progress against one of those three indicators. That's not a great track record there for these non-degreed credentials, Jeff.

Jeff Selingo

No. And I think that's why Matt several times pointed to the fact that if combined with the degree, and I think he even mentioned, right, the ones that are putting people ahead or giving them a wage gain are those where they're kind of stacked on top of the degree. 

And I think that's critically important to show that this is kind of a both/and, at least right now, that the these non-degree credentials haven't displaced the degree, not quite yet, maybe never. 

But for right now, there is a lot of value in attaching them to the degree. 

And for our listeners out there who work at four-year colleges and universities or two-year colleges, as well, how do we think about integrating these credentials into them so that they're not a totally separate system? To me, it's about how do we, you know, increase the value of the four-year degree, particularly at a time, as we've talked, where not only is the value under question, particularly if they don't have the wage gains alone, meaning the degree doesn't have the wage gains alone, or that people are just foregoing them altogether, often replacing them with these non-degree credentials thinking that will do the work for them, and it clearly doesn't. 

So to me right now, the value in these continues to be those, as I think Matt said, in many of these cases, that are paired with a degree. But too often, that requires the student to stack those together rather than the institution helping to stack those together.

Michael Horn

Yeah. It's a great point. Right? Western Governors, one the things they do is actually part you know, take those non-degree credentials and bundle it into the price of tuition and pay for all those certification exams and so forth. 

And I think count me in the camp at least Jeff of ... I know I'm supposed to be the pure disruption guy that says, 'Oh, these are gonna blow it out of the water.' But I think this hybrid, the two together, is sort of where it's gonna be at for as far as I can see. 

There's nothing to me that suggests people are gonna be able to jump into as employers cobbling together all these non-degreed credentials to sort of make sense of an individual through that. I would be suspect that that's the way it would go. 

You also expressed skepticism around something else that Matt was relatively more optimistic about, which was if you put this data out there, will students actually start to absorb it and make different decisions with it? 

I think I'm in your camp on the skepticism here, but I wanna hear your take around why data alone, even inserted in context, as Matt said, isn't really gonna move the needle, at least in your view, it seemed was your … was your take.

Jeff Selingo

Well, and it may be inserted in context, but often it isn't. So my experience here is with the College Scorecard, which uses employment data, earnings data through the federal government scorecard, which has now been around, by the way, for about ten years. It has been strengthened over time even even though it was started by the Obama administration. It actually has been strengthened a lot by the Trump administration over both his terms.

Michael Horn

Bipartisanship.

Jeff Selingo

Yeah. Bipartisanship. 

But here's the thing. Like, I still talk to parents about the college scorecard. I talk to counselors about the college scorecard, and I get blank looks. And we know from the data that the Ed Department has put out how very few people use it on a on a regular basis.

And maybe it's because, as Matt said, it's not in context. In other words, even though it does drive a lot of the ROI calculators that are out there. So maybe it's being obviously used in a different way than people actually going to the federal government website itself. So maybe if it was used in context, people would use it more. In other words, they have the information at hand when they're making a decision. 

But I'm even skeptical of that, Michael, you know, because so much of the enrollment decision, so much of the college decision, particularly about non-degree credentials, happens in a very short amount of time. So think about you're a worker. You're suddenly unemployed, or you suddenly, see a job that you're qualified for mostly, but you're missing kind of a key component. You do a search or now you use AI to figure out, like, where can I get that piece of you know, that credential or that knowledge that I need to get that job or get that promotion? And then you find out the five places that offer it, and now you're starting to see, 'Okay, how much does it cost? How convenient is it?'  You're looking at all those factors. If you're not presented at that moment with the outcome data that Matt was talking about, you know, you're just gonna kind of continue moving forward. 

And so to me, it's not like a college search where you're gonna pay for a four-year degree, you know, tens of thousands of dollars over the course of four years. As we know, the college search goes on for an extended period of time. It could be eight months. It could be two years. It could be four years in the case of some families. It includes an entire family discussion. It includes high school counselors. In some cases, students are hiring independent counselors. There's a lot of people around that process putting in all these inputs. 

And by the way, right now, they're not putting in the College Scorecard input. So that says to me that even if you have more time, even if you have all of this data around you, you might still not be using it. 

So why do we think someone's going to use it when they're largely doing the search alone, and they're doing it in a short amount of time, and they're making quick decisions?

Michael Horn

Yeah. I look, I'm largely with you. I think the power of anecdote continues to hold people as, you know, people often say, 'He who controls the metaphor wins the debate,' and I think it just trumps data often, right, in terms of decision making. 

I'll say the reasons why it might move the needle are if we're talking about the use case of, say, Workforce Pell, right, with these short term credentials. So now we're talking about accredited colleges. And if it's federal funding, you know, we're not just giving the nutrition label, to use Matt's words, but it's also government putting like a maha like a fist, if you will, on the scale and only allowing dollars to flow to programs that meet a series of high bars around earnings, then you might see, you know, something different in that part of the market because it's not just the individuals making that choice. 

I think in the informal, like unaccredited market, Matt, as you said, you know, this contextual thing, you gotta nail that 'job to be done' timeline in our language. Right? What most people look for is something … sort of they're passively looking and then there's a some sort of event that happens, switches them to actively looking and then another event occurs and it sort of creates a time wall by which they have to make a decision, and that's when they make trade-offs. Right? 

And data is one element into that strand. Right? It can help, but it's not the whole picture for that individual in that circumstance, in that context. 

And so you gotta get it exactly, drop it in when they're making the decision and they're making the trade-offs. Like, it's a lot of things that have to go right, for that to occur, I guess, Jeff, is my take. 

Matt, the other thing he talked about was the AI paralysis and hiring, and the AI applying to AI. We've talked about this a lot. It's one of my favorite slides to put up in my own talks at the moment. Matt says in essence that we can break this by it. I think his argument is having AI assess you, right, on the spot. Ryan Craig recently ...

Jeff Selingo

That's the way I understood the argument. Right?

Michael Horn

Exactly. Yep. That was my take as well. Ryan Craig, our friend, recently made a a similar version of this argument. I'd love your hot take on this, Jeff. Is this gonna take off? Is this gonna really happen?

Jeff Selingo

I'm skeptical of that. I think that it takes a while for us to figure out what's happening in the job market around hiring. I think it's the same thing when the Internet came around and people started applying and then hiring with kind of a press of a button. So we'll kind of see where this goes. I think the hiring process right now is stuck because of the larger economic forces, not necessarily solely because of AI, and maybe that gives us time to figure this out. 

So I'll be curious. I don't really have a hot take on it yet, but I'll be kinda curious to see where this goes.

Michael Horn

Alright. I'll give you mine, which is I think, 'good luck.' I have skepticism as well. Look, I think it'll move the needle at the margins. But to believe that this will work, I think you have to believe that we really understand the skills at the heart of top employees. 

And maybe AI is gonna be able to do cognitive task analysis and reveal that to us. Maybe. 

But the job descriptions we have today are flawed. They don't actually accurately describe what top people do. You have a challenge also, which is that, as Bror Saxberg often says, experts in a field have forgotten 70% of the knowledge and skills that they're using in the job. 

And so when you ask them, 'Oh, you know, what does a great person look like?' They just leave out huge swaths of what they're sort of subconsciously doing, right, in their background knowledge that they don't even think about. And so you have all these things working against it. 

And then the other piece of this, you talked about the online job applications. You know, the needle hasn't moved a ton. Social capital still is how we largely hire. Right? Looking at people in your network and so forth. And at the moment, all my research suggests that's going up in terms of importance. That people are relying more on social capital, not less in an era of AI applying to AI. 

But I actually, I wanna lay this out which is I think this is actually the real opportunity, Jeff, for accredited colleges to distinguish themselves in this non-degree credential space where they can really lean into the things that make colleges special, which is the experience itself of being with fellow learners. 

This is sort of not the online argument. Right? This is the place-based argument. And lean into the network of regional employers, the alums that have come from your school, the fellow students who will be in those positions etc, etc.

We recently had this conversation at a community college together, right, and they were talking about starting sports teams and on the one hand you're like, what are you doing about that? And you think about it though, sports teams are places people gather, it creates intentional experience, it's not gonna look like the D1 NIL stuff, right? And it's where people can hire and things like that. But I do think that takes colleges really leaning into this — not the classes if you will, but the experience itself. It's like how, you know, retail that has survived or malls that have survived, they're not trying to out-Amazon, they're trying to lean into the experience of going into these places and really making it worth being there. 

Look, you couple that with a policy environment focused on outcomes that maybe levels up that market, colleges might be the trustworthy place, right, to earn these sort of non-degreed credentials whether they are separate or as part of your degree. 

Look, there's dangers for them too. It could be an over-regulated market that stifles their ability to quickly spin up programs since there's all these requirements that governors have to effectively create lists of which programs are eligible and things of that nature. 

And the legacy cost structure certainly will cause them to price it higher, I suspect, than the non-accredited providers that are coming in. Those are huge things that will hamstring them, but there's an opportunity, I would argue, to lean into experience and cut into that, know, grow that 1% lifelong learning market share if you will.

Jeff Selingo

No doubt about it, Michael. 

And I think we're gonna end it there, for our discussion.

But we are going to bring back Matt one more time for his hot take in our lightning round of questions. So we are back with Matt Sigelman for our fun lightning round here at the end of Future U. And, Matt, are you ready to be on the hot seat?

Matt Sigelman

If not now, then when?

Jeff Selingo

Okay. What was your favorite college class and why?

Matt Sigelman

I don't know that my memory works that far back. I actually think I do. 

You know, I only, as a junior in college, discovered civil engineering. My “intro to civil engineering,” was life-changing. It changed the way I looked at the physical universe around me, and all of a sudden, I could see forces and what was supporting all those buildings I was looking at.

Jeff Selingo

Oh. So I guess if this doesn't work out, you could become, you know, building bridges first or something.

Matt Sigelman

It's never too late.

Jeff Selingo

I guess it is. Okay. So what's the one thing you wish you had learned in college that you didn't?

Matt Sigelman

It took me a really long time to understand the business world. You know, I grew up, I had a very privileged childhood. Grew up lucky in all sorts of dimensions, but I had no idea how the world worked. And that took me literally a few years, before I had really kind of built some sea legs.

Jeff Selingo

So, Matt ...

Matt Sigelman

I don't know if that was my college's job to teach that, but I sure wish they would have.

Jeff Selingo

So final one, Matt. I think you have a pretty cool dream job now, but I could imagine this is not the dream job you thought you would have at 18. So what was it? What was the dream job you wanted to have as a teenager?

Matt Sigelman

When I was a little kid, what I really wanted to do was be a pilot. And, you know, I'm not driving the bus. I'm riding in the bus, but I'm sure riding a lot.

Jeff Selingo

Yes. You are. Yes. You are. One of these days, we're gonna compare our mileage totals. 

Matt, thanks again for being on Future U.

Matt Sigelman

so enjoyed this.

Jeff Selingo

Always a fun part of the episodes. Thanks so much for joining us on Future U this week. That will do it for us today, and we'll see you next time.