In the tech industry (design, marketing, programming) we're seeing that companies don't care about credentials when they see an awesome portfolio. Google VP of People Ops said they no longer care about GPAs [1]
On the other hand, one of our students from Spain managed to convince his university to validate one of our courses as credits. So I don't know. But the trend is towards projects > diplomas.
(However, for papers, that's gonna take a while)
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-ho...