Are microcredentials the future of education? How short-term programs are changing higher ed
Two years ago, Camille Charleston moved from Haiti to the United States, hoping to escape "survival mode" and pursue the American dream.
Charleston, 29, didn't have enough money to pay for college, and didn't qualify for federal financial aid because he's here on humanitarian parole, not a permanent resident. But he knew he wanted to make his dream of working in IT a reality.
While working two jobs, as a security guard and lab assistant, he enrolled in a microcredentialing program focused on the foundations of IT at Bunker Hill Community College.
He completed the program in June and has been interviewing for IT jobs.
"I can see the future now," Charleston said. "I'm so happy to not only dream about it, but to live the dream."
Microcredentialing programs enable people to complete industry-certified certificates and credentials to enter the workforce or gain additional skills for a promotion. They can be used later as credits for an associate's degree and are often more affordable than obtaining a degree.
"You can get up to speed without having to have that commitment to a full two-year degree where you're getting a lot thrown at you, and it has the upside of you can also get a better job right after you get that certification," Brendan Hughes, a spokesperson for Bunker Hill Community College, said.
He described the foundations of IT microcredential as a "slam dunk" because someone can go right to work with the credential.
Other microcredentialing programs offered at Bunker Hill include health care, cannabis, clean energy and marine technology.
These programs are becoming increasingly widespread as public confidence in traditional four-year colleges declines and the cost of attending college continues to rise .
A push from the Trump administration
The surge in workforce programs also comes at a time when the Trump administration is fighting against institutions like Harvard University , pulling billions of dollars in federal funding over campus antisemitism, and pushing for vocational schooling and workforce development.
While the Trump administration is still in talks over a potential deal with Harvard, several other deals have made headlines.
One was a settlement between the federal government and Brown University — over campus antisemitism — wherein the university committed $50 million to support workforce development in Rhode Island.
And, in Trump's " Big Beautiful Bill, " students will now be able to use Pell grants to pay for non-degree, short-term, accredited job-training programs.
Pell grants — which don't have to be repaid, unlike federal loans — were generally available for students seeking two or four-year degrees. Now, accredited certificate and non-degree programs are included.
The emphasis on workforce and vocational programming comes at a time when there has been an attack on Ivy League institutions and on higher education for being perceived as too liberal, according to Dr. Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education.
This is despite the fact that the more education someone obtains, the more likely they are to obtain higher salaries , Guillory said.
However, the push against four-year institutions wasn't born out of the Trump administration, he said. Conservative policymakers have had ongoing concerns about student loan debt and have questioned whether traditional academia provides relevant, transferable skills in the job market.
"In their minds, institutions of higher education are the problem and the reason why students are borrowing so much money," he said.
'We're answering the call'
More than 100 community colleges across the U.S. have adopted microcredentialing programs since 2020, according to the Education Design Lab, a national nonprofit that aims to co-design an inclusive, skills-based learning and work system to create upward economic mobility.
The nonprofit has helped institutions design nearly 300 micropathways, with 129 already launched and an additional 156 in development.
"There is a nationwide need for something like this. Folks are interested in developing programs more quickly, understanding who their learners are, understanding key needs from their employer populations," said Rachel Kahn, the senior director of the community college growth engine at the Education Design Lab.
"And especially now with the Trump administration, we are poised to have this really ripe opportunity to answer that question. Where community colleges are that center for economic mobility in their communities," she said.
Outside of community colleges in Massachusetts, other institutions, such as the University of Massachusetts Boston and Tufts University , have also been instituting these microcredentialing programs.
The push comes in part because the "traditional" student, who attends a residential four-year college straight out of high school, is becoming less common.
"It does create that short-term experience for learners to go more quickly into the job market, into the labor market," Kahn said. "We're answering the call for those sorts of pieces a lot faster than a traditional degree program."
Now, the "nontraditional" student, who is an adult or has children, is becoming the "new majority learner," according to Kahn.
"Our primary focus is what we call the new majority learner, and that is everybody who … the traditional higher education system was not designed to support," Kahn said.
Breaking down, or "unbundling" an associate's degree into "bite-sized chunklets of education" that can later contribute to a degree can be a more accessible way of taking part in academia, according to Kahn.
However, microcredentialing programs haven't been around for long, and community colleges can have a difficult time keeping track of where students go once they leave the microcredentialing program. As a result, there isn't comprehensive data yet to show how successful a program like this is.
Bunker Hill Community College's Chelsea campus on Monday, August 25, 2025.(MassLive/Juliet Schulman-Hall)
Why create microcredentialing programs in Mass.?
In a state dominated by four-year institutions, microcredentialing provides an important alternative for students, according to Lauren Ellis, associate dean of workforce and economic development at Bunker Hill Community College.
"There's no wrong door. Whether [a student] comes in on the credit side or non-credit side. There's something [the person] can do both ways that's going to make [them] marketable," Ellis said.
She sees the future of education to be more focused on the workforce and microcredentialing. However, with that, she believes more employers need to be open to hiring those who don't have associate's or bachelor's degrees — and instead have the relevant skills and training.
"I think it's okay to start out in [the] workforce because a lot of companies say go back and get your degree and then they pay for it," Ellis said.
Bunker Hill Community College launched its microcredentialing program in spring 2023, while Roxbury Community College is still in the process.
Roxbury Community College is creating a building automation systems microcredentialing program.
Despite already offering non-credit workforce programs, many of the programs at Roxbury Community College require at least 150 hours to complete, according to Salvador Pina, vice president of economic and workforce development at Roxbury Community College.
The microcredential will be a way for someone to see if they actually want to complete a longer-term credential or obtain an associate's degree, he said.
Salvador Pina is the vice president of workforce & economic development at Roxbury Community College.(MassLive/Juliet Schulman-Hall)
"Am I going to throw you into a 450-hour program so you can bail after three months, realizing it's not something you like or want to do? That makes no sense," Pina said. "By taking micro credentials, you can start to get a feel for what that program's like and you can start to understand A, do I like it? B, do I have an aptitude for it? And C, am I willing to put in the work to get the degree pathway?"
A microcredential may also be a good option for high school seniors who are involved in an after-school program that the community college works with, he said.
"I think it's about the speed to employment. Students will work harder if they see the end faster," Pina said.
"The way I imagine them to work is there's small bites at the apple that allow you to make some progress when you don't have the time to take big bites," he said.
Roxbury Community College campus.(MassLive/Juliet Schulman-Hall)
'It isn't an either-or'
While there have been fights between the Trump administration and higher education, educators pioneering the microcredentialing program say that a student doesn't have to choose between entering a workforce training program or completing an associate or bachelor's degree.
Sometimes, the microcredentialing programs can give students a window into what it might be like to go to college.
"We are creating on ramps for learners to get into post-secondary education in ways they may not have been able to find a door for themselves otherwise," Kahn, from Education Design Lab, said.
"This is an opportunity to break those generational cycles in communities that have struggled in post-secondary education historically, or have struggled with trust issues around post-secondary education," she said.
The expansion of Pell Grants for workforce development is only going to emphasize the pathway from microcredentialing to associate's or bachelor's degrees, according to Hughes, from Bunker Hill Community College.
"I think it's going to help again make that articulation between workforce programs and credit programs, degrees and certificates all the more tighter. It's going to really bring those together because they'll be under the umbrella of federal financial aid," Hughes said.
"We've never seen it as the either-or ... they do work together," Hughes said.
For Charleston, the microcredentialing program at Bunker Hill is a way to demonstrate to employers that he is committed to learning and knows the basics for a job.
He hopes to complete a two or four-year degree in higher education down the road, once he can earn more money — ideally, through an IT job — as he goes through the green card process.
While the Trump administration has been walking back the legal protections of over half a million Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans on humanitarian parole — which Charleston used to legally enter the U.S. — he said he is still confident in his future in America.
"Even with trouble, America still stays the land of opportunities," he said.
"I'm not the same man who came into America in August 2022. Because now I can see the future," he said.
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