INSTITUTIONAL AND POLICY SUPPORT

Lumina Foundation encourages efforts to increase the number of students who earn postsecondary education degrees.

Students and taxpayers are spending more on higher education and getting less in return. International comparative data show that other countries are outperforming and outranking the United States when it comes to the quality, performance and price of higher education. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranks the United States 10th among other industrialized countries in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds possessing a college degree.

Today's workforce is knowledge-based, and the demand for high skill levels is increasing. In a nationwide survey, 80 percent of American voters said young people who did not have the skills to reflect changing workforce demands will face tougher challenges earning a living wage and maintaining U.S. competitiveness than previous generations. Nearly 42 percent of those surveyed believe other developed countries are doing a better job than the United States in preparing their children for the workforce of the 21st century. More » PDF

Improving the capacity of institutions to measure what students are learning is an essential component of education reform. Access to information on how students progress through the educational pipeline is extremely limited in higher education. This lack of data and accountability prevents policymakers, students and families from making informed decisions. State governments and the federal government are calling upon higher education systems to show how much and how well students are learning. The Educational Testing Service (ETS) has released a series of white papers PDF to help institutions identify and measure student learning outcomes.

Research indicates that public and institutional policies can create incentives to lower the price of a college degree. A Lumina-supported initiative, Making Opportunity Affordable, is designed to promote and support a productivity agenda for American higher education, particularly at public institutions. The initiative's agenda includes working with states and institutions to increase the percentage of college-educated adults by promoting cost containment and strategic investment of resources in student success.

The college attainment gap will increase as America's most-educated population faces retirement age. The United States faces an unprecedented shortage of college-educated workers in the future. The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems estimates we will need to educate nearly 800,000 more college graduates each year from now through 2025 to compete with top-performing nations.

"Narrow" learning is no longer sufficient for success in a global society. Postsecondary institutions need to ensure that what students are learning aligns with the broad knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in an evolving workforce. More » PDF
Financial incentives can be a key factor for keeping adults enrolled in educational programs. For low-income adult students, access to college can often be a challenging prospect. Two-thirds of low-income adults who entered college in 1995-1996 reported that they were seeking a bachelor's or associate's degree. Of those adults, 7 percent earned a bachelor's degree and 8 percent earned an associate's degree within six years. Several states have implemented promising efforts to break down the access barriers for adults. More » PDF