Google Career Certificates: Heralding the Future

Inside Higher Ed

Ray Schroeder

March 16, 2022

While the problems with education beyond high school are deep and many, three towering issues loom over the rest. Combined, they make continuing our current model untenable for the future.

First among the problems is the scale of student debt. U.S. student loan debt totaled $1.6 trillion as of March 31, 2021. This figure dwarfs all other forms of debt short of mortgages in this country. Anecdotally, senior citizens continue to carry student debt into their retirement years. For the most part, the debt is for baccalaureate degrees. Yet, in a recent study, investment in 40 percent of master degrees fails to produce a positive return.

Next among the problems is the long-standing, continuing problem of noncompletion. In almost any other industry with the exception of gambling, clients would not stand for an entity taking tens of thousands of their dollars with no return. Michael J. Petrilli writes in Education Next, “the six-year completion rate for any degree or certificate is currently 62.2 percent. That means that 37.8 percent of college students drop out with no credential to their name.” Taking a long view, it is astounding that consumers of education put up with this. How can we defend the fact that one-third of those who enroll leave with no credential?

Third among the problems is that a majority of the workforce does not feel fully prepared for their jobs in this Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is true among employers and employees alike. IBL News reports on a recent large-scale survey by Salesforce: “In the research, a total of 76% of global workers say that they feel unequipped and unprepared to operate in a digital-first world. However, only 28% of them are actively seeking skills training.”

There are many more problems in our field, but these three loom large over postsecondary education and society at large. These shortcomings have driven some of the larger employers in the country to drop their prior requirements that job applicants have a college degree. It has seemed impossible to solve these issues—they are too large, too pervasive, too daunting—that is, until now. Google has taken on the challenge—not to solve all problems for all people, but rather to build an example of how we can go about addressing these problems in a meaningful way.

Launched last year, the Google Career Certificate program offers the project management certificate, data analytics professional certificate, UX design professional certificate, IT support professional certificate, and IT automation professional certificate. All are for beginners in the field, and all are offered through Coursera and other institutions for as little as $39 a month after a free trial.

The American Council on Education recommends that 12 college credit hours be offered for selected certificates. “We are excited about this expansion of our Grow with Google Certificates program and the opportunity to partner with academic institutions across the US, including community colleges, which are critical to workforce development and economic mobility,” said Ruth Porat, Alphabet and Google CFO. “We believe that to have sustainable economic growth, we must have inclusive growth, and we are committed to continuing to help people develop the digital skills they need to participate in this economy.”

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