The opinion on credentialing versus education fits current situation not only in the United States, but in the world countries as well. Corporate greed and corruption are well present at each educational establishment. In capitalistic countries, it is a way to gain more revenues when parents are saving money for their children’s higher education. Keeping it in mind, colleges and universities encourage more and more enrollees to join their communities. Nevertheless, the possibility to get education .distantly is a hidden way of omitting concrete educational procedures (classes, check-outs, participation in lab reports, etc.).
Jane Jacobs sheds light on the following statement: “Today’s youngsters have had it drummed into their heads that a post-secondary education is the key to a good job” (Jacobs, 2006, p. 165). At this point credentialing and education overlap, since they promote a focal vision of the priority obtained when one has an opportunity for higher education. Graduates even take advantage of current high technologies so that to minimize their costs and optimize the process of education which guarantees the certificate and diploma of higher education without attending regular classes.
Touching upon this idea, Jacobs (2006) fairly admits that credentialing and education are not identical to the extent of students’ search for marks and credits more than for perceptible knowledge. To make it plain, the author provides a strong assumption: “The more successful credentialing became as a growth industry, the more it dominated education, from the viewpoints of both teachers and students” (Jacobs, 2006, p. 170). The author’s idea is that education seems to have lost its prior value. Thereupon, credentialing is considered as an “indirect legacy of the Great Depression of the 1930s” (Jacobs, 2006, p. 168).
To conclude, the arguments by Jane Jacobs (2006) give grounds to state the gist of contemporary credentialing at colleges and in universities. Education and credentialing are two terms to overlap in their primary goal of getting a good job. However, they are not identical, as credentialing destructs the role of knowledge at hand.