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As college enrollment , the popularity of short-term nondegree credentials 鈥� like certificates and professional licensing 鈥� is thriving and a new Pew research analysis is providing fresh insight into how students are paying for them. 

When asked about how they paid for what they considered their most important license, 71% said they used their own money while 19% reported tapping into government or private loans and nearly 25% said they received support from their employer. 

Ama Takyi-Laryea, a Pew senior manager who contributed , said up until now, there鈥檚 been a gap in knowledge about how individuals are financing this level of skill acquisition, even as the number of people pursuing credentialing is rising dramatically.

鈥淗aving data to inform different pathways towards quality credentials 鈥� no matter what form it takes 鈥� is what’s essential right now,鈥� she said.

A third of all adults in the United States have a nondegree credential, Pew found, and of those, 18% also have a college degree.

Michelle Van Noy, director of Rutgers University鈥檚 Education and Employment Research Center, said understanding where the money is coming from for certificates and professional licensing sheds light on whether that type of education and training is being properly supported.

鈥淚f we see so many people paying on their own, we want to know if this is fair for people who are trying to seek out these pathways,鈥� she said. 

The underlying data for the Pew report comes from the pilot, a survey of 15,734 respondents, ages 16 to 75, administered by the U.S. Census Bureau. For a number of key indicators, this dataset is the only nationally representative source, according to researchers.

Nondegree credential programs are typically designed to train students in specific skills, like dental assisting or computer programming. There is no industry standard definition, yet they differ from associate and bachelor鈥檚 degrees in a number of ways: they are often much shorter in duration, ranging from a few weeks to less than a year; they are offered by both accredited and unaccredited schools 鈥� as well as businesses, associations and government agencies 鈥� and they can expire.

Critical to the cost consideration is the fact that they have historically been ineligible for government aid, though recently passed will mean that starting in July 2026, federal Pell Grants for low- and middle-income students can be applied to select accredited programs.

When asked about their most recent vocational certificate vs. their most important active license, the financial sources shifted: fewer people (about half vs. roughly 70%) said they paid using their own money, about the same amount (20% vs. 19%) reported relying on loans and the number looking to their employer for funds shrunk from nearly 25% to 15%.

鈥淚t is concerning that most students pay out of pocket for their sometimes-costly NDCs [nondegree credentials], especially because one study found that over half of these programs鈥� hourly costs minimum wages across 15 states,鈥� according to the Pew report.

Researchers found that the annual rates at which people recall earning nondegree credentials tripled between 2009 and 2021. During this time, rates in vocational certificate attainment jumped from 0.4% to 1.2% and those earning professional licenses jumped from 0.5% to 1.6%. Researchers noted that these shifts occurred against the backdrop of waning enrollments in traditional college programs.

Nationally, over 1.1 million credentials are available, ranging from big tech certifications to community college programs, yet quality and outcomes are highly mixed, according to by the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. They found that only about 12% of programs lead to significant wage gains for workers beyond what their peers make without the credentials.

And while the top 10% of credentials boost annual earnings by almost $5,000 within a year of completion, the average credential increases earnings by just $1,200, and 鈥渕any credentials fail to move the needle at all, leaving learners exactly where they started,鈥� according to the report.

鈥淲ithout better data and transparency, countless Americans risk wasting time and money on credentials that lead nowhere,鈥� the AEI report says.

This variation in quality, paired with a scarcity of reliable data, 鈥渓eaves people to sort of fend for themselves, 鈥� Rutgers鈥� Van Noy said. 鈥淚t points to this larger systematic problem.鈥� 

While these initial findings provide significant new information and are 鈥渢he best we have,鈥� Pew鈥檚 Takyi-Laryea stressed that they have limitations and should be viewed as a jumping off point for future work. 

She said forthcoming research will look more granularly at payment methods; analyze educational pathways that lead to these programs and the industries they鈥檙e in; and look at student perceptions of their programs in terms of both value and quality. 

The goal is to allow students to make better-informed decisions and for states to set guardrails. This is particularly important as state-level investment in these programs has significantly increased, with to short-term credential initiatives.

鈥淚 cannot stress enough the need for researchers to fill these data gaps around quality and value for students, for states that are investing heavily in these programs, for employers 鈥� even for the providers,鈥� Takyi-Laryea said.

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