Credentials matter, especially for gaining access to good jobs that pay family sustaining wages with benefits, but it’s the competencies these credentials purportedly represent that actually matter for success in life and in the workplace. Unfortunately, U. S. results of the 2011-2012 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIACC) suggest that credentials are not reliable indicators of competency.
Holzer and Lerman find that although proficiency levels in numeracy and literacy are highly correlated with educational attainment, there is substantial variation in literacy, numeracy and problem-solving proficiency within educational education levels and overlap in scores between educational levels. Nearly 40 percent of those with only a high school diploma are in the same proficiency levels as the bottom 75 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree. A quarter of those with Bachelor’s degree tested below proficiency (level 3 on the PIACC scale) in literacy and even greater percentages score below proficiency in numeracy and problem-solving skills.
Further, there are significant racial discrepancies among credential holders. As reported in America’s Skill Challenge: Millennials ad the Future, a January 2015 report by the ETS Center for Research on Human Capital and Education, American Black adults (25-64 years of age) have significantly lower literacy and numeracy competencies than White adults even if they have attained the same level of education. White adults with a four-year college degree outscored similarly credentialed Black adults by 44 points. Further, 71 percent of Black adults with a college degree compared to 29 percent of White adult college graduates scored below the minimum standard for numeracy. There also is no statistical difference in the percentage of Black adults that perform below proficiency between those with only a high school credential and those who report having some postsecondary education, but not a baccalaureate credential.
