State Higher Ed Officials Do Away With the Term “Noncredit”

A couple of years ago, the Louisiana Board of Regents decided to ditch the term “noncredit” as a way to refer to short-term and workforce programs at colleges and universities.

Board members were struck by “what a terrible term that is” for the wide swath of education and workforce training pathways that students can take, said Tristan Denley, the Louisiana Board of Regents’ deputy commissioner for academic affairs and innovation.

“There’s not that many things in life that get described by what they’re not,” Denley said. “That term just didn’t in any way seem to capture what these kinds of credentials are, what students gain by earning them.”

Louisiana now uses the phrase “validated skills and learning.” The goal is to convey to students that these programs show a mastery of skills valued by employers.

Louisiana isn’t the only one getting rid of “noncredit.” The state is part of the Noncredit Mobility Academy, a group of higher ed officials from six states, brought together by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, to work on their noncredit offerings. The group—representatives from Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Texas and Virginia—has collectively decided the term “noncredit” has to go, according to a recent blog post from the organization.

Carrie Klein, associate vice president of SHEEO, said calling courses noncredit focuses solely on what students aren’t getting—college credit—versus what they are gaining.

“They are getting opportunities that help them advance in their career,” Klein said, “which is good not just for them as individuals but for the state, as well, and for our country.”

The renaming trend is catching on among states and higher ed institutions alike. Montana now calls noncredit programs “validated skills and training.” Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana refers to these programs as “skills training” to better “reflect the value of these courses for our students,” college officials told Inside Higher Ed in an email. Clark State College in Ohio uses the term “professional credit” programs.

Jo Blondin, president of Clark State, said she was tired of the “deficit framing” around noncredit students.

“The implication to me is you’re really not a student. You’re not a learner,” Blondin said. “You don’t matter to the institution the way that the credit students do. And nothing could be further from the truth.”

What’s in a Name?

The term “noncredit” is widespread in academic circles, but it’s often opaque to students, especially first-generation students, Denley said.

When students hear a program is noncredit, they often ask, “‘What do you mean it’s noncredit? Do I not get credit for doing it?’” he said. “It’s just very difficult unless you’re on the inside of higher education nomenclature to know what it is that’s being said there.”

He believes the state’s new terminology makes it easier for campuses to explain program options to prospective students.

“Sometimes, what’s in a name can be important,” he said.

To Blondin, the term “noncredit” reflects a bigger issue: the “bifurcation at colleges and universities around academic credit,” which she’d like to do away with. She said at too many institutions, students in short-term programs are treated differently than peers in credit-bearing classes. For example, they may not get student IDs or have access to the same wraparound services that other students do.

She believes this two-tiered system stems from the fact that federal financial aid funding depends on students taking a certain number of credit hours. As a result, credits play an outsize role in how colleges are structured, sometimes to the detriment of noncredit programs.

“We’re moving toward … ensuring that our professional credit students are eligible for all of the services that any student would get at Clark State, including wraparound services, counseling, tutoring,” Blondin said.

Kanler Cumbass, senior associate at Education Strategy Group and the author of the SHEEO blog post, also emphasized that renaming these programs is just one step in ensuring these students get the care and attention they deserve from state and higher ed leaders.

For too long, noncredit programs have been a “black box” or the “hidden college” within the college, he said. Having an open debate about how these programs are characterized is part of a broader effort to bring these students into the “limelight.”

“The name change has to be supplemented with both a statewide and higher education institutional commitment to student success for learners who start their postsecondary journey through short-term training programs,” Cumbass said.

These programs should “help you land a good job to put more food on the table for your family,” or offer “a clear, automatic, stackable pathway into longer-term learning to do the exact same,” he added. “A name change by itself does not accomplish that goal,” but it’s a part of a “slow shift.”