Stackable Degrees: Building Blocks for Career Readiness
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I first learned about stackable degrees when I joined Boise State's College of Innovation + Design in a two-year appointment as the program launch director for the BA in Innovation + Design. The benefits of stackable degrees were immediately apparent, and I've been thinking of simple ways to integrate stackability into more "traditional" programs.
What are stackable degrees?
Stackable degrees are simpler than they seem on the surface. Simply put, they use smaller credentials to build toward a larger whole. We can think of this in terms of blocks. Let's say we want to assemble a whole unit - for example, a bachelor's degree. In a traditional degree, we often think of the building blocks of a degree as individual courses. On the other hand, stackable degrees use a credential, such as a certificate, as the building block of the degree. Sure, certificates are generally made of courses, but the salient unit of the degree is the credential.
What are the benefits of stackable degrees?
Stackable degrees include a number of benefits. I'll highlight three: clarity, career development, and modularity.
Clarity
It may seem counterintuitive, but stackable degrees offer clarity for students by making explicit connections between the courses within the degree. For example, academic credentials like certificates involve an approval process on at least the institutional level. Recently, my colleagues and I developed and proposed a Certificate in AI and Writing. This began with a collaboration of content experts that was then discussed by program faculty before being approved by the department curriculum committee and faculty. Currently, it is awaiting approval by the college curriculum committee before going on to the university committee. Finally, it will need to be approved by the state board. This certificate will have been well vetted before it makes it into our university's catalog. This means that the courses included have thoughtful and clear connections, including program learning outcomes, that we have to articulate before we make it available to students. So, when such a credential is included in a stackable degree, that building block is fully formed for students.
Career development
Just as stackable degrees offer clarity, they provide students with opportunities for career development in a couple of ways. First, a degree that's built on smaller credentials makes a graduate's skills and expertise visible to employers in a way that individual courses don't. Returning to the certificate my colleagues and I proposed, a credential in AI and Writing makes easier connections for potential employers in a way that courses in writing with/for AI, AI applications in the workplace, and style and writing with technology (all topics covered in the degree) can't.
Stackable degrees also provide pre-degree credentials for working students. One program that informed the development of Boise State's BA in Innovation + Design is BYU Pathway certificate-first approach. Let's look at the Bachelor of Applied Science in Communication Social Media Marketing path. It includes general education courses plus certificates in social media marketing, communication fundamentals, and communication core. Students can finish the social media marketing certificate in their first year, which may help them to secure a job or a promotion with their current employer. Likewise, students who either need to take a break or don't finish their degree will likely have earned at least one credential. Finally, earning a credential early in their academic career can build confidence and momentum toward graduation.
Modularity
Perhaps the most significant benefit of stackable degrees is their modularity, which offers flexibility for both students and programs. For students, that means building their degree with credential blocks that can be tailored specifically to their interests and aspirations. Programs have the chance to organize degrees around blocks that can be replaced or revised based on program assessment or feedback from stakeholders. This has an added benefit of cost effectiveness for programs, as a credential could serve majors in their degree program when combined with other credentials into a stackable degree, students in other programs who are interested in adding the credential to their degree, or learners who complete the standalone certificate without working on a degree.
What are the components of stackable degrees?
Stackable degrees can take a lot of forms. Three components you might find are microcredentials, certificates, and degrees.
Microcredentials are short-term credentials that focus on specific skills or knowledge. They are often offered online and can be completed in a relatively short amount of time. If you're familiar with gamification in higher education, you could think of microcredentials as akin to badges, and they often focus on a particular skill. According to The Conversation, microcredentials in fields such as IT and construction showed the most benefit in a 2019 survey. I’ll go into more detail on microcredentials in a future post.
As discussed previously, certificates are credentials that are awarded for completing a specific program of study. The example I discussed focuses on academic certificates, but professional organizations also offer industry-recognized certificates. For example, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) offers both Certified Professional (SHRM-CP) and Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) credentials for HR professionals. In terms of stackable degrees, we’re usually talking about academic credentials.
Associate's degrees can act as a standalone degree, a stackable degree, or a building block toward a degree. Bachelor's degrees that are stackable can include a combination of building blocks, especially certificates.
Everyday Innovation Answer - Clusters as an intermediate step
Anyone who currently works in higher education, especially at public colleges and universities, is well aware of the resource challenges we face. Curriculum design and development - coupled with curriculum approval processes - takes resources. In most cases, there aren't funds for course reassignment time to work on new programs. And even if there are, there likely aren't opportunities to hire new faculty. At the same time, stackable degrees can offer great benefits to students and increase efficiencies for degree programs. So what can we do to take advantage of this trend?
BA in Professional & Public Writing
In the last academic year, the Department of Writing Studies undertook a degree program revision that resulted in the BA in Professional & Public Writing. This degree brings together faculty expertise in technical communication, digital media, and public writing with student interests and community needs. It's a practical degree that includes real-world writing, experiential learning with community partners, and project-based learning.
One important part of the revision was that it must result in a program that uses fewer instructional resources to free up capacity for supporting general education courses. This constraint required program faculty to think creatively about how to build a purposeful and sustainable program. We believe both the degree as a whole and its component parts could prove valuable for a variety of students. However, our limited resources meant that we didn't have time to revise into a stackable format right off the bat. We chose instead to use a core + clusters structure as a potential intermediate step toward stackability.
To complete the BA in Professional & Public Writing, students meet the University Foundations requirements - about thirty-seven credits of general education courses - and about forty-seven elective credits. The major requirements include an eighteen-credit core and two clusters. Currently they choose from three nine-credit sets of courses: Leading Writers, Technical Communication, Writing for the Public Good. That will increase to four choices with the addition of a Writing and AI cluster in 2025-2026, pending approval.
BA in Professional & Public Writing, launched in AY 2024-2025.
Clusters to certificates
The use of clusters or emphases in a degree is not a new concept, but we intentionally designed this collection of courses with potential future certificates in mind. Since modularity is hidden within the degree as is, there are a variety of ways to remix it into a stackable degree. I'll discuss a couple of examples. The simplest option for converting the BA into a stackable degree is to convert degree building blocks into certificates. In this case, the core and three clusters could each become a certificate. A second option is to narrow the core to include three courses that fit together - the intro and topics course along with the capstone - and then add one course from the core to each of the clusters, increasing then from nine to twelve credits. Neither of these changes affects other requirements, such as elective credits; both simply reframe the building blocks of the degree.
Two options for revising the BA in Professional & Public Writing from a traditional degree with clusters to a stackable degree made up of certificates.
We’ve discussed a variety of options as faculty, and we haven’t settled on how or whether we’ll revise for stackability. However, as we create new clusters, we are building them as standalone certificates as well, and we are well positioned for converting to a stackable degree should we choose.
Conclusion
Stackable degrees offer clear, career-ready, modular options that benefit both students and programs. By carefully selecting the right credentials, individuals can acquire the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in today's competitive job market, and programs can attract and support students on their learning journeys.
