Education

Lumina Plans To Help 6.9 Million More Americans Earn Post-Secondary Credentials: Community Colleges Are Key


The Lumina Foundation has identified a three-part strategy to achieve its policy-defining “Big Goal” of increasing the percentage of American adults with postsecondary degrees and other high-quality credentials to 60% by 2025. It is striving to add 6.9 million more adults with post-secondary credentials beyond what is forecast over the next five years.

Since 2008, as part of its push to reach the 60% attainment goal, Lumina has tracked the post-high school educational success of Americans ages 25-64. In 2008, 37.9% of American adults had a recognized postsecondary credential. As of 2018 (the most recent year where full data were available), that figure increased to 51.3%, an improvement that, in part, reflects Lumina beginning in 2014 to count workforce certifications and other high-quality certificates. In absolute numbers, that’s 12 million more U.S. adults who have college degrees and other quality credentials than ten years earlier.

Lumina projects that by 2025, “even with the barriers associated with a pandemic, unemployment, and racial injustice, attainment will reach 56% among working-age adults nationally if recent enrollment-and-retention trends and practices continue.” If that’s the case, it leaves a 4-percentage-point gap to reach 60%. Closing that gap will require that an additional 6.9 million more people than projected earn post-secondary credentials in the next five years.

Bottom line: reaching the 60% goal remains possible, but it will require a significant acceleration of progress for it to happen. Here’s how Lumina expects to get 6.9 million more adults to the credential finish-line, as explained in its new strategic plan, released today.

More adults will earn quality credentials through short-term and innovative programs at community colleges. Lumina will work with community and technical colleges to help 2.6 million more U.S. adults earn quality, short-term credentials than would be awarded based on current estimates.

Although nearly half of adults who lack credentials after high school believe they need additional education to advance, they will be able to earn those credentials only through establishing closer relationships among educational institutions, labor unions, employers, industry groups, and economic-development organizations.

While the number of certificate and certification programs has grown during the past 20 years, few systematic efforts have been made to ensure these programs meet labor-market demand and address the specific needs of students of color, working adults, women, and students from low-income backgrounds.

More adults will complete associate degrees. Almost 9 million people are enrolled in community colleges, but only 32% complete an associate degree within three years.

Lumina plans to intensity its work with community colleges so that 3.3 million more adults earn associate degrees than currently estimated. It will seek to increase completion rates, expand access for more students, and develop employer partnerships to create more pathways to associate degrees—especially those that improve the integration of work and learning.

More adults will complete bachelor’s degrees. Lumina will focus on helping at least 1 million more adults earn bachelor’s degrees than would be awarded based on current estimates. It will build on efforts to increase associate degree completion and also strengthen degree pathways and innovative learning models. It will focus on re-enrolling students and scaling efforts that lead to their success, ultimately eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in bachelor’s degree attainment.

Special attention will be paid to “minority-serving institutions and regional colleges and universities, where students of color and adult students from low- and middle-income families are most likely to start their degrees. To reach the national attainment goal and state-specific goals, state leaders must focus on the 36 million people who have college experience but did not finish their degree programs. Bachelor’s-granting institutions must concentrate their efforts on strategies that will help these students re-enroll and complete their degrees.”

Throughout the new strategic plan, Lumina’s fourth in 12 years, a dual emphasis is placed on promoting quality learning along with eliminating racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in post-secondary access and success. Lumina believes that racial equity and educational quality are “so closely related they cannot be considered separately. To meet 60%, we must follow a path that is specific both about how many adults with credentials we need for the society we all want to live in—and about who needs to earn these credentials to ensure a fair and just allocation of the benefits available only to those with an education beyond high school.”

Lumina says it “will concentrate on ensuring that adults, especially people of color, have access to programs that lead to meaningful credentials, that they have financial and nonfinancial support along the way to ensure their success, and that the credentials they receive lead to good jobs, higher pay, and more opportunities to learn and serve others.”



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