A Future Full of Badges - Kevin Carey, Chronicle of Higher Ed

More users will beget more users. Employers will gain facility in the use of badges and confidence in those who bear them. When that happens, it will create hardship for traditional institutions that now use the revenue generated from their undergraduate-credential franchise to subsidize the cost of graduate education, administration, scholarship, and other activities. But society as a whole will benefit enormously. The store of human capital will be more broadly and accurately represented by credentials that are useful in a mobile, interconnected world. Separating the credentialing and teaching functions of higher education allows organizations to specialize in one or the other. Open systems make the world more egalitarian and less expensive. Higher education is in serious need of both.