Counting Credentials, In Context 2025: The Opportunities of Digital Credentials

Executive Summary

The Counting Credentials, In Context 2025 report is a companion to the Counting Credentials 2025 report, designed to provide a deeper understanding of the information in the Counting report. The United States offers an unparalleled diversity of opportunities for talent development, with over 1.85 million credentials from more than 134,000 providers. Yet this abundance presents challenges: learners, workers, and employers must navigate a complex landscape to find, collect, and manage credentials that document skills and knowledge across a lifetime of learning and advancement.

Digital transformation and transparency offer the solution. Digital credentials are verifiable, searchable, shareable, and learner-centric, enabling recognition of skills wherever they are developed. Supported by a mature technology infrastructure, including Open Badges, Learning and Employment Records (LERs), and the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL), credentials become discoverable, comparable, and actionable. They also empower distributed credentialing authorities, from universities to employers and community organizations, while providing individuals control over their own learning records.

This moment is critical. As skill requirements evolve rapidly and employers adopt skills-based hiring, trusted digital credentials enable talent to be matched with opportunities at scale. AI further amplifies these possibilities, guiding learners through complex pathways and helping employers identify qualified people. By creating meaningful digital credentials with rich metadata in CTDL,  we can turn the complexity of its credential landscape into a strategic advantage—transforming potential confusion into clarity and opportunity.

For a broader perspective, see our accompanying overview resource here.

The Counting Credentials, In Context 2025 report was produced with the generous support of Walmart, the Strada Education Foundation, and Instructure. Thank you to the Counting Credentials Advisory Group members for their commitment to this work.

2025 Counting Credentials Report

The Counting Credentials 2025 report provides extensive insights into the evolving credential landscape by counting the total number of unique credentials available in the United States and describing the rigorous process of accounting for each credential category. This report identifies 1,850,034 unique credentials in the U.S.