Future-Proofing Professional Education: A Growth Playbook for 2025

In 2025, online, professional, and continuing education leaders are navigating a challenging yet transformative period. Rising demands for skills-based, flexible learning are matched by an increasingly competitive landscape. 

Today’s adult learners, who often balance work and study, seek programs that offer immediate value, clear career pathways, and lifelong learning opportunities. As traditional degree enrollment declines, institutions must adapt to meet the needs of career-focused, working learners and help them differentiate themselves in the job market. 

Below, we share five data-backed strategies for attracting more learners, engaging and reenrolling alums, and boosting your program’s brand awareness. Based on data from the State of Credentialing Report — with tips and examples from leaders at Syracuse University, Penn State University, George Washington University, and MIT Professional Education — these strategies equip you to thrive in 2025 by delivering relevant, accessible, and career-driven learning experiences.

5 Big Wins For Your Learners and Your Institution

1. Make the Career Value of Your Credentials Clear

What the Data Say

For today’s learners, credentials must be more than just symbols of completion. They’re tools for career growth, skill demonstration, and differentiation in the job market. 

In our recent survey, 96% of digital credential earners found them valuable for their career prospects, and 78% felt they enhanced their chances of receiving a job offer.

However, there is still some confusion about digital credentials among learners. While learners didn’t have an instant preference for digital credentials, our data shows that they wanted everything that only digital credentials can provide:

• • Context: they contain metadata (i.e., an overview of acquired skills, evidence of what was learned and assessed, criteria for entry and earning)
  • Verifiability: they allow employers to confirm learners have earned the credential
  • Security: they can’t be faked or tampered with
  • Sharability: they can be easily shared on social media and added to LinkedIn profiles

This poses a significant opportunity for credential issuers — not only to maximize the value of their digital credentials via metadata but also to better communicate this value to learners. As Penn State University Assistant Teaching Professor of Economics Frank Sorokach points out, “Employers want to know what a badge tells them — about the student’s competency, the quality of the education they received, and the skills they have proven they have.”

What You Can Do

First, add as much relevant metadata as you can to your credentials. This allows employers to examine what the students have learned and how they’ve demonstrated their competency, increasing the chances they’ll land their dream job.

Syracuse University is a fantastic example of maximizing metadata. As shown below, each of their credentials:

• Has a detailed description of the course or workshop, cluing employers into what, exactly, the student learned
• Is tagged with specific skills and knowledge that the recipient gleaned from the course
• Shows students how and where to share
• Clearly display a verification badge, issue date, and expiration date
• Links to more information about the School and its curriculum

After your metadata is in place, focus on educating your learners — why should they care about your digital credentials? Make the value clear on your program page(s) and in credential delivery emails. Here are strategies we’ve seen work well:

• Sharing stats on how digital credentials have helped learners advance their careers
• Shouting out students who share their credentials on LinkedIn
• Adding short videos or testimonials from learners who used credentials in their job search
• Explaining digital credential security features to emphasize their trustworthiness
• Providing tips for incorporating digital credentials in job applications and professional profiles

The American Council on Exercise (ACE) is a great example of an organization that does this well on its program page. The value of its credentials is front and center on its program page, and each section gives learners even more reason to accept and share their badges.

2. Give Learners the Education They Want

What the Data Says

Today’s learners crave a curriculum that prepares them for the challenges they’ll face in their professional careers. 

The State of Credentialing report revealed that 92% of learners want projects and assessments as part of their coursework, and 97% want a series of linked modules (e.g., courses or microcredentials) to help them master a topic and apply that knowledge to real-world scenarios.

Unfortunately, what learners want to see in their courses doesn’t align with what education institutions provide. Just 29% of credential issuers have learning pathways, and only 34% have built-in assignments and tests.

What You Can Do

Addressing these gaps may seem daunting, but you can start by breaking down existing courses into focused skill modules and integrating existing content like seminars and guides. Pairing these materials with hands-on projects and assessments within a structured pathway allows for a flexible, comprehensive learning experience that builds skills progressively through interconnected microcredentials.

Helping learners visualize their learning pathway and awarding digital credentials along the journey will increase learner retention and application, encourage them to keep going, and reward them for staying the course.

UiPath’s Specialized AI Pathway, for example, clearly outlines each Pathway requirement, allowing learners to choose between several different courses (and even optional courses) to suit their specific needs.

Educational publisher McGraw Hill assesses students’ knowledge before their course of study, then takes them through targeted lessons based on those results, inserting hands-on activities and quizzes along the way. As Bob Nisbet, Senior Marketing Manager at McGraw Hill, emphasizes, “We’ve found this makes learning more efficient and effective. Students know exactly what skills they need to acquire and can track their progress along the way.”

3. See Credentials as a Marketing Flywheel

What the Data Says

94% of education providers who have adopted digital credentials report a positive impact on their organization, and the most significant benefit they cited was increased credential sharing online. Why? Because it’s essentially free advertising.

In an era of rising learner acquisition costs, enabling learners to share their credentials online boosts brand awareness and, in turn, program referrals. As Myriam Joseph, Assistant Director of Marketing and Business Development at MIT Professional Education, explains, “If you admire someone and you see they just completed a certificate that everyone is raving about on social, you’re going to want to know more.”

Yet most institutions overlook this powerful organic marketing channel — only 1 in 3 sends a reminder to students to open credentials and share them. 44% of issuers report doing nothing to recognize or reward learners who share their credentials.

What You Can Do

Encouraging credential shares can establish your credential as a “must-have,” remind past learners to enroll in new courses, and attract more interest from new learners. 

But learners have a lot on their plates — one email explaining how to share their credentials isn’t going to prompt action. The most successful credentialing programs do four things:

1. Provide guidance on how learners can use their credentials.
2. Explain why they should share them.
3. Use learner engagement strategies that encourage sharing.
4. Engage and reward learners who share their credentials online.

An easy way to knock out all four? Accredible’s Email Campaigns.

Thomas Mastro, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Planning at The George Washington University’s College of Professional Studies, saw the value right away: “Because a large majority of our student population are working professionals, many of them are active on LinkedIn. Adding badges and certificates to their LinkedIn page is impactful in the sense that then their networks will see, and possibly engage in, our programming.”

He and his team deployed a Credential View Reminder, sent one week after a “Congratulations, here is your badge” email, and a LinkedIn Share Reminder, sent one month later to remind students to share their certificates on LinkedIn.

A strategic email reminder sample highlighted in Unlock the Power of Email Campaigns

These strategic email reminders alone increased the University’s LinkedIn profile credential add rate by 133% and its LinkedIn share rate by 580%. Thomas plans to launch more Campaigns, pinging students who get halfway through sharing their certification (to push them to follow through) or emailing past learners when new coursework rolls out (to increase reenrollment).

4. Keep Learner Engagement Going

What the Data Says

According to the State of Credentialing report, more than 9 out of 10 learners plan to take more courses and are actively looking for recommendations from their education providers. However, 1 in 4 don’t follow through because they don’t know what to take.

Our data also suggests that learners are looking for ways to leverage their credentials for future opportunities. 84% of learners report wanting to be included in an online directory, yet only 35% of issuers provide the opportunity.

This tells us that issuers are missing a significant opportunity to meet learner expectations post-course completion to retain them and help connect them with future opportunities.

What You Can Do

First, review all of your existing courses and determine what the next step for your learners would be. Myriam at MIT Professional Education did just that, examining 50 of the program’s top courses, noting the course or certificate learners should aim to take next, and including them in the earned digital credential emails.

The team also provides course recommendations via Accredible’s Recommendations on digital credential pages (its own and other issuers’ pages) and prominently at the top of CourseFinder, a credential directory and course search platform. In doing so, MIT Professional Education better markets its courses to new and existing learners, generating additional program enrollment and revenue.

With Recommendations, MIT Professional Education has generated over 5 million impressions with current and future learners — generating over 18,500 additional program referrals. 

“Since we’ve started using Recommendations, we’ve seen a lot more learners who earned credentials take additional courses,” says Myriam. “When we started, we had around 35% of learners return, but now we’re over 50% taking additional courses.”

Accredible’s Spotlight Directory is another way for learners to maximize their credentials. Wharton Executive Education built a “Wharton Talent Network” to showcase alumni who’ve earned credentials, with a short description of their professional experience, work availability, and links to their social media profiles. Employers can filter results by credentials, skills, or even location to home in on highly qualified candidates for specific roles.

5. Make Metrics Your North Star

What the Data Says

It’s hard to know what learners want without a direct line of sight into learner data. Yet only 54% of issuers track which learners complete a course, and a mere 23% track which learners take additional courses.

Less than 50% track what content or courses learners are most engaged with, which learners are most engaged, course completion time, and where learners drop off – all critical data points for enhancing the learner experience.

Worse, only 13% of issuers track program referrals from shared credentials. If they still use paper or PDF certificates, tracking how and how often they are shared is nearly impossible.

What You Can Do

As a marketer, Myriam Joseph, the Assistant Director of Marketing and Business Development at MIT Professional Education, immediately saw their certificate program as a way to amplify MIT’s exceptional network. However, to get learners to share, she had to see what was happening behind the scenes and modify her marketing strategies accordingly.

She and her team used Accredible’s analytics to:

• Monitor open rates, following up with the students who hadn’t yet opened their certificates
• Track credential shares, engaging with students who posted about their accomplishments on LinkedIn
• Follow credential referrals, determining which courses were most intriguing to potential learners

At the same time, Myriam made it easy for potential learners to explore added courses, taking them straight from a student’s credential LinkedIn post to their course catalog.

“We made it easy for them to learn more about that program and bring them back to our website,” she says. “But most importantly, we worked with Accredible to add tracking to all of these actions so that we can measure them. And we were able to see how many new people came in through Accredible and entered our lead pipeline so we could nurture those learners.”

Since shifting to digital credentials and optimizing the MIT Professional Education program, Myriam and her team have issued over 75,000 digital certificates, hit a consistent 90% open rate, boosted credential referrals by over 55%, and increased LinkedIn share rates by a staggering 280%.

Where to Go Next

The strategies outlined in this playbook aren’t just theoretical — they’re proven approaches used by leading education programs to drive growth and engagement.

Remember, transforming your program isn’t about making radical changes overnight. It’s about strategic, data-driven evolution that keeps your learners’ career needs at the center of everything you do.

The institutions that will thrive in 2025 will be those that view their programs not just as educational offerings but as dynamic career development platforms.

Here’s to making 2025 your best year yet!

About Rochelle Ramirez

Rochelle Ramirez is the Senior Vice President of Product at Accredible, the world’s leading digital credential platform. She has helped hundreds of organizations achieve their credentialing goals through her strategic market thinking, execution, and leadership. In her various product leadership roles over the past two decades, she has harnessed her passion for innovation to help clients solve their most demanding business challenges. Connect with Rochelle on LinkedIn.