Full episode transcript
00:00:06 Dakota
Oh, and welcome to today's students. Tomorrow's talent. The show about work and learning after high school, brought to you by Lumina Foundation. I'm your host, Dakota Palicki. And before I get into today's show, there's a couple of updates I'd like to share.
00:00:20 Dakota
With you first we've made a big change here at the show we moved. We are now recording our show at Lumina headquarters in Indianapolis IN hopefully at first you don't experience any change at all. We'll still be bringing you the voices, stories and perspectives that matter most in our field. Over time, though, we may be adding some additional elements to make the show more accessible.
00:00:42 Dakota
More engaging and hopefully more insightful to you. Which brings me to my second update. We will be hosting a live recording of our next episode on September 4th at 1:00 PM.
00:00:52 Dakota
Eastern we'll be bringing together Melanie Heath of Lumina and some of her key partners from around the country to talk about the ways States and institutions have redesigned admissions processes and policies. We'll be taking questions, sharing lessons learned over the past few years, and casting our vision ahead as the great admissions redesign continues to sweep.
00:01:12 Dakota
Country be sure to register by going to the events section at luminafoundation.org and I do hope you join us for what I know will be a great live discussion today. We are not talking about admissions. In fact, we are talking about people who have been admitted, attended classes, earned credits, but stopped out before completing their first credential.
00:01:34 Dakota
A recent report from the Nationals doing Clearinghouse delivered some mixed news this summer. The bad news is that the population of adults in the United States that have some college credit but have yet to earn their first credential is grow.
00:01:48 Dakota
The good news is that many states have made considerable strides in getting these people back enrolled and on their way to completion. With over 43 million people having some college experience without earning their first credential, often times taking out student loans or putting other life plans on hold only to leave before their investment pays off.
00:02:09 Dakota
This crisis impacts communities, employers and individuals and their families. Why are people stopping out before they complete their degree or certificate? And what are these States and institutions doing to reenroll these individuals to help them stay on a path towards complete?
00:02:24 Dakota
What if we could actually calculate the probability of someone re enrolling and completing with that kind of data? Could we really reorganize our higher education system to end this growing crisis? Our show today is in two parts. First, we'll hear from Doctor Wendy Sedlak and Doctor Chris Mullen of Lumina Foundation. Together, they'll walk us through the latest research.
00:02:45 Dakota
Innovations happening around the country and articulate why this is such an important group of people to focus on.
00:02:51 Dakota
Part 2 includes a conversation with Sally Glickman of the Burning Glass Institute. She and her colleagues developed a predictive model that can provide a probability score based on dozens of factors to determine the likelihood that someone will re enroll and complete. Let's get started.
00:03:11 Dakota
Joining me now is Doctor Wendy Sedlak, strategy director for research and evaluation, and Doctor Chris Mullen, director of data and measurement for Lumina Foundation. Thanks so much for joining me.
00:03:21 Wendy Sedlak
Today. Yeah. Thanks for.
00:03:22 Chris Mullin
Having us, it's great to be here.
00:03:23 Dakota
Yeah, I was trying to remember the last time you both were on the show, Chris. We were talking about stronger nation. I think last, yeah.
00:03:27 Chris Mullin
That's correct.
00:03:28 Dakota
Wendy, have you been on?
00:03:29 Wendy Sedlak
Before, I've never been on before.
00:03:30 Dakota
Lee. Yeah. Going to be here, that's criminal. And I'm glad you're on today. I know. Today we're talking about a new report that was just released in early June from the Nationals doing Clearinghouse talking about.
00:03:31 Wendy Sedlak
Tom.
00:03:42 Dakota
America's progress when it comes to a pretty important population of students, those people who went to some kind of post secondary went to college, earned some credit, but didn't earn that first credential, you know, cause can you just give us a quick little overview about?
00:03:56 Dakota
What the report's about?
00:03:57 Chris Mullin
Sure. So this is our annual report that looks at progress we're making as a nation to serve these students who started college and did not complete.
00:04:05 Chris Mullin
And also to understand if the population is growing or shrinking, unfortunately we're up to 43.1 million individuals this year started college and did not finish. That's roughly the size of California in terms of size and magnitude. So we've got a lot of work ahead of us to do. There was some progress we've reenrolled some students and so colleges and universities around the country are making.
00:04:26 Chris Mullin
Real strong, strong strides, but still a lot of progress to.
00:04:29 Dakota
Made still. Yeah, I appreciate that cuz as I was reading the press release I immediately got confused like the title of it. Is this really great news? Hey, the vast majority of U.S. states see more students who had stopped out of college now re enrolling. We're finding that for you know, for the second year in a row, actually fewer Americans are stopping out and more returning to college.
00:04:50 Dakota
But as I kept reading about, you know, 3/4 of the way down, there's big bold tests that says the total population of some college, no credential Americans is still growing. We're up to about 43,000,000 now. Is this good news? Is this bad news? Is this mixed news? What? What are we reading here? Well, first of all, it's important news. This is a population that doesn't get a lot of attention. And so really to understand that.
00:05:11 Chris Mullin
Like this is a group of individual.
00:05:14 Chris Mullin
Who decided to go and she would pursue an industry certification College Certificate, an associate degree or bachelor's degree, and then make it there. So the good news is that we're trying to understand this population as best we.
00:05:27 Chris Mullin
Can.
00:05:29 Chris Mullin
And that a lot of the universities and states are taking actions to serve this population.
00:05:34 Chris Mullin
So that's why we see some of the increases in the numbers you see in the report about numbers of students coming back and we're learning about potential learners and types of students that want to reengage. The bad news is, is we're just not nearly doing enough to serve them. And the number continues to grow.
00:05:48 Chris Mullin
Yeah.
00:05:49 Dakota
I have a couple other just like clarifications and maybe my cynical or skeptical brain kicks in when I read some of this stuff so you know, for example, I was just curious, you know, out of the gains that we've seen and it should be noticed, there's a lot of states that have made pretty substantial gains, you know, including some as high as over 20%. So a lot of really good news.
00:06:09 Dakota
Important news, as you said, Chris, but I know I was curious about you know whether how much of this was due to improved retention or they referred to as perseverance versus just more reenrollment. Are we seeing more credential completion as a result of either one of those? Is it pretty balanced?
00:06:26 Chris Mullin
Yeah. So if you look at the data and understand there's a lot of students who are coming back to reenroll, typically they tend to like potential completers, which are those who are closer to being successful in college. And you see some policies in some places as a report points out where colleges have looked at students and realized they've earned enough credits to earn a credential.
00:06:47 Chris Mullin
And there are.
00:06:48 Chris Mullin
Reporting them. And so that's the point in the report that gets pulled out a little bit, right is I remember talking to a president, for example, who said I did a degree audit and I found students on my campus with 240 credit hours. Wow. Right. And so they might have changed their major or something happened where they get the support services they needed that Wendy could speak a lot too, right.
00:07:08 Chris Mullin
Like really good advising and saying, hey, you've earned enough credit to have this credential.
00:07:13 Chris Mullin
We'll use it in a marketplace and see how it's working for you. And so that's something to really think about and something keeps me up at night is how are we tracking and better serving these students and ensuring that they have the opportunity to be successful across a range of policies and practices that institutions have the opportunity to implement.
00:07:32 Dakota
Yeah, I know both of you been working on.
00:07:34 Dakota
These very large data systems, everything from state longitudinal data systems, our national data sets, obviously with national clearing House, but also at the institutional level. I'm curious from both of your perspectives is sometimes I look at reports like this, it makes me wonder if our ability to collect data on sometimes very hidden populations that's just gotten better. So is this a snapshot?
00:07:55 Dakota
In part that says, hey, actually this there's actually more folks than we even knew about. Is this a result also in part of just better data collection that's happening on the field?
00:08:04 Chris Mullin
Yeah, I would say so. I would say there's been a lot of effort to better understand the passive students, especially those who are not first time full time students. The students that you think of or sitting on the quad having a coffee between classes. And so a lot of credit to states as you mentioned, the state longitudinal data systems have really been instrumental in understanding this and that allows for them to.
00:08:24 Chris Mullin
Partner with nonprofit third party organizations like the authors of this report and publishers, this national student clearing.
00:08:30 Chris Mullin
Else, to really understand a fuller picture of who's not only enrolling in bachelors degree programs, but who's enrolling in certificate programs, who's enrolling in associate degree programs. So there's a lot of growth there. We still have some opportunities to better understand students in what we call non credit programs or those that don't earn traditional college credit.
00:08:50 Chris Mullin
But do lead to important industry certifications like a Cisco certification to be an IT person or the American Youth Building Association has a certification that allows you to say I can actually build yachts and boats, and that's really important places like Maine. So there are some data sets and systems we're still working on.
00:09:05 Chris Mullin
Building out a lot of great progress is happening there. In many states there's something called the state non credit data project that we've had the opportunity to support. That's really doing some really critical work in that areas, but we still don't know enough about that population in particular.
00:09:20 Dakota
One of the things I appreciate this report is, at least for me, it's one of the first times I've seen kind of.
00:09:26 Dakota
Segmentation out of the some college no credential group in this particular, I mean we we see it and we'll get into the disaggregation with disaggregation with race, ethnicity, and sex. But they also organize it into two different categories, potential completers and recent stop.
00:09:44 Dakota
Notes what's the distinction is that is that a new distinction? Am I just like missing this or has this been going on this whole time and I just?
00:09:51 Dakota
Didn't realize it before.
00:09:53 Chris Mullin
It's definitely something that they've been tracking and the more that we work with our partners and the more they get to build these databases and use them for the first time, the more insights we learn, right. And so potential completers are people who have.
00:10:04 Chris Mullin
Finished at least two years of college, right? And so they are the ones that essentially full time college, not part time college and so essentially have enough credits to have an associate degree.
00:10:14 Chris Mullin
And so by using data, the more you use it, the more you become aware of them. So I think that's what you're seeing is lifting up of the data. The analysts that the team there, the National Clearing House are doing a really great job of not just putting a report out to put a report out, but they actually sit down with the data that talk to us about. And they say this is what we're finding. These are trends that we're seeing. So I think that's what you're seeing the report and there's so much information in there that's.
00:10:34 Chris Mullin
Rich, they're really spending the time to really not just report on the populations, but understand the population. Yeah, and.
00:10:40 Wendy Sedlak
I'll say what's really helpful about this is that in this particular report, and I think it was in their last report as well, talking about potential completers as well as that stopped out population gives institutions.
00:10:53 Wendy Sedlak
A.
00:10:54 Wendy Sedlak
A population they can really focus on, right? So these are folks who are almost at the finish line. And So what I really appreciate and value.
00:11:02 Wendy Sedlak
In the report is this ability to sort of point to different populations. So institutions have a starting point about who they might reengage and reach out to.
00:11:11 Dakota
Yeah. I appreciate the point when, cuz that was where my mind was going. Like as a practitioner, as someone who tries to support a lot of communities doing this work, it's a it's a good way to segment out a pretty monolithic population.
00:11:22 Dakota
20 You know, 43 geez, 43 million people the size of California. You know, you have to figure out good ways to segment it and I appreciate that.
00:11:30 Dakota
I know that you know, as we dig into the report, it touches on some of the things that kind of drove the improvement in some of these states. You know, one of the things that jumps out to me, I think, is credit for prior learning. When are you are you seeing that as well come out of this report?
00:11:44 Wendy Sedlak
And particularly those states that have made a lot of gains. Yeah, I mean credit for prior learning, lumen has been working in this space for a while.
00:11:50 Wendy Sedlak
And it is absolutely something that we still need to see more States and institutions take on. So we are seeing progress when you have States and institutions who have really embraced credit for prior learning and that essentially means right for.
00:12:06 Wendy Sedlak
Just have done things, gone to work, done volunteer work and they're coming back to school and they're getting credit for those skills and competencies. And so once you do that, people are on an accelerated pathway. And so that's been incredibly valuable. I think when we talked a little bit at the beginning, Chris mentioned.
00:12:26 Wendy Sedlak
Colorado's policy shift as well, that's a little bit different, but they are, you know, they awarded 800, I think associate degree.
00:12:37 Wendy Sedlak
Over the last batch here and that was, you know, for folks who had earned those credits along the way. And so that's another example of changing some of the policies in particular that are creating either financial barriers or sort of structural barriers along the way. And when we've seen states.
00:12:57 Wendy Sedlak
Do that and institutions remove those barriers, make it easier for students to be able to access. They not only can can get in, they can also complete faster.
00:13:08 Dakota
Yeah, I wanna stick with the credit for learning just a moment.
00:13:12 Dakota
I know that there are so many different ways to do it. You know, there's some people are doing portfolio assessments, there are others that just say, hey, if you already have this credential, that's what accounts for particularly with non degree industry based credentials. Are you starting to see any patterns about which of those practices policies might be better on behalf of the student?
00:13:32 Dakota
More reliable, more consistent. Are we seeing any of those patterns start to emerge, particularly among states that might have fared better in this report than others?
00:13:41 Wendy Sedlak
Yeah, that's a good question to go to. And I don't know if I have an answer for it quite frank.
00:13:45 Wendy Sedlak
We've done a lot of work historically, as you said, there's a lot of different ways to track credit for prior learning, portfolio reviews. You've got military, which is a really big, that's obviously helping a lot of students along the way. That's probably where you're seeing sort of the biggest sort of lift in terms of this area. But we haven't done a deep dive.
00:14:05 Wendy Sedlak
Around sort of which of these processes have been most impactful? What I can say?
00:14:13 Wendy Sedlak
Is implementing credit for prior learning is impactful for students, and we know that time and time again.
00:14:20 Dakota
Yeah, so do something.
00:14:23 Chris Mullin
Message and there's a range of credit for prior learning options too, right? There's Advanced Placement. Sometimes students bring in, as we know, there's a large segment of dual credit enrollment in community colleges across the country. So students are showing up.
00:14:34 Chris Mullin
With more and more credits and not just recently, it's gone back overtime. It's definitely growing, but those credits are there competency based education, it's allowable and bringing students in for things they might have learned beforehand and just to demonstrate it as you.
00:14:48 Chris Mullin
And and what's interesting to me is, and I don't know every single accreditation policy, but you only have to offer 25% of the courses at your home institution in the region. I know best, which means there's plenty of flexibility for institutions to say, you know what, I'm willing to accept learning from other locations and other modalities and other ways of learn.
00:15:08 Chris Mullin
Looking to get somebody to a degree, my father-in-law aggregated credits from a large number of institutions. Think 8 or 9 and at at an older age he was about a little over 60 years old. He's meant a lot to him to get his bachelor's degree and he went to an institution and said we're gonna work with you, put these credits together and help you finish out your bachelor's degree. And he was.
00:15:28 Chris Mullin
Able to do so so, but it took him a little time to find that institution who's willing to say I'm going to.
00:15:34 Chris Mullin
With you.
00:15:35 Chris Mullin
I'm going to see as an asset that's valuable. You've already had a professional career. You've done well in your life, you've raised a family, but this is important. So how are we going to use all that knowledge, skills and credit you've had to make sure that you can complete so there are institutions out there doing that really.
00:15:48 Wendy Sedlak
Wonderful work. We just need more of them to do so. And I'll say on the same point you asked about sort of exemplars, I will say the best example.
00:15:56 Wendy Sedlak
That we see is where institutions are sort of automatically doing that, right? So you're meeting with an advisor or counselor, they're looking at, you know, kind of your resume of experiences. And they're automatically giving you those credits. And so it's not something that you have to go to multiple different offices for. You don't have to create an entire portfolio around.
00:16:17 Wendy Sedlak
You don't need to deeply engage faculty. They're saying we know that you have skills and competencies that can be applied in this space that are valuable, that are worthy, and doing that automatically and seamlessly is.
00:16:29 Wendy Sedlak
The pathway forward.
00:16:30 Dakota
Yeah, and I still appreciate that point, cuz I know I've heard from a lot of folks that are pursuing PhDs, for example. And you know, I don't have one, but I hear it's hard. I know you both have it. My wife has 1 and I watched her go through and I said never, I don't want to do that. But I know that there's plenty of people that time out and then later on they want to finish.
00:16:50 Dakota
But they will go to another institution. Who will? You know, basically grant them all that credit and just say, yeah, we'll start with where you're at and continue dissertation. So to me, there's always that kind of embedded inequity in it that will do that for people, for advanced degree.
00:17:04 Dakota
But not for someone who maybe has a yacht making certification that allows them to get their.
00:17:10 Chris Mullin
Bachelors degree totally. That person might own the next building company that can help people. And yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's not hard to make.
00:17:14 Dakota
Certainly making more money than me.
00:17:17 Chris Mullin
More money than me.
00:17:18 Chris Mullin
Either, but there's those real opportunities to do that and I think it's important that we lift up.
00:17:25 Chris Mullin
People doing that really good work, right, and deciding to serve these students because it's an institutional decision.
00:17:32 Chris Mullin
To serve them.
00:17:33 Dakota
Yeah. If it's happening one part of the institution, why not the?
00:17:35 Chris Mullin
Other right, absolutely. And and I'll just add to you brought a Graduate School. We do it for Graduate School. There are executive MBA programs, they're executive education, doctorate programs. There are all types of execute graduate programs that say you're a working adult.
00:17:41
MHM.
00:17:51 Chris Mullin
But you want to pursue a graduate degree.
00:17:54 Chris Mullin
We as an institution will change the way and when we offer classes, how we offer classes and how we advise you and how we put you in a cohort to help you get a graduate degree.
00:18:03 Chris Mullin
But we won't do that if you want an associate degree.
00:18:06 Chris Mullin
Or a bachelors degree. And that's the part that, like, I still can't figure out. Right. Like we know the process and procedures to make it happen. We just need it to happen more frequently for more people.
00:18:17 Wendy Sedlak
Yeah. And we know that a lot of these students are coming from community colleges and so to sort of tie back into the report itself.
00:18:24 Wendy Sedlak
Health we know that a lot of those students, they work, many of them work full time or part time. They're often caregivers. They have a lot of different responsibilities. It makes it difficult to go.
00:18:36 Wendy Sedlak
To school full.
00:18:37 Wendy Sedlak
Time and kind of your normal sort of nine to five hours. And so to Chris's point, really thinking about like what are those?
00:18:44 Wendy Sedlak
Flex modalities, right? Where can we do online where we can do hybrid, where we can do evening, where we can do a week.
00:18:51 Wendy Sedlak
Trend, you know, we do it for a range of populations. We do it for athletes and working with their schedules. We do it for these executive MBA programs. I think we can do it for these.
00:19:01 Dakota
Students as well. I think that's such an important point too. I know a lot of us, we all know that there's an affordability problem, higher education, period. We have to work on that. Absolutely. We also know that that affordability.
00:19:11 Dakota
Issue is definitely driven in part in large part by the increased cost of living, childcare, transportation, housing, all those pieces, but.
00:19:19 Dakota
I also think that sometimes when we free ourselves from just thinking about the money element, we find other ways to actually improve outcomes for people, and in time is a big one. Like how do we change time? And I'm looking at the report here, page 9. It says of the more than 1,000,000 2023-2024 re enroll these 47,000 of them earned their first credential in that same year that they re enrol.
00:19:41 Dakota
So it tells me at least something that, hey, there is something that these institutions, these states have done, they say, hey, have you come back and you know we've changed you know first, you know, we did something different. You left us and we apologize. You know, here's what we've changed. And by the way, this isn't gonna be a forever process. You're gonna start over again. So time seems to be a pretty big element of this.
00:20:01 Chris Mullin
It absolutely is. We know about it. Last time I saw the data about 8084% of students work right, so we know that people are balancing and that's not even including people who might have to work balance taking care of families as a caregiver, maybe work 2 jobs. So I think time is absolutely a huge part of the.
00:20:17 Chris Mullin
And how do we schedule the classes to allow time to work for them? And this is the hard part, is about whose time matters more. The students or the institutions.
00:20:30 Chris Mullin
And that's the paradigm shift that we see happening more and more increasingly. And I think that's the number one question. This isn't like a population. Like if we just like have an extra advisor for adult students, they can fit into the world in the way that we operate. And so we've seen a lot of shifts and especially community colleges where the most students leave and come back from this population to serve to enrollment students they'll send.
00:20:51 Chris Mullin
Faculty members to the K12 school, there's lots of different models there.
00:20:55 Chris Mullin
What we're working on and what some places are working to do, saying like, OK, how can we fundamentally shift the instructional experience and support that goes around it for adult students and it's it's not a, it's not a light lift, it has to.
00:21:08 Chris Mullin
Be intentional.
00:21:09 Wendy Sedlak
It's not, but I would say that the commonality again when students are successful.
00:21:16 Wendy Sedlak
Is that these institutions have?
00:21:19 Wendy Sedlak
Taken a hard look at themselves. They've gone back and they've said to themselves, what are we here for? What is our mission? What are our values? And it often comes back to students. Students sit at the center of this work and more and more. When institutions really take that sort of hard look at themselves and create this sort of culture of care that we like to talk about.
00:21:41 Wendy Sedlak
That's when those students are better served, and it's sort of flipping the model on its head to say that's who we're here for, that's who we're in service of. And what can we do to, you know, help them persist and.
00:21:51 Dakota
Complete and on the report, it seems like some institutions aren't asking them themselves that question. I mean, so it breaks down about what kind of institution.
00:22:01 Dakota
Is doing best by the some college no credential.
00:22:04 Dakota
Group and really the only two kind of sectors within higher education that aren't making progress are private. Four year for profit universities and primarily online institutions. Do we need to be worried as a country about these institutional practices and policies?
00:22:24 Dakota
As it pertains to these folks, are they not asking themselves those kinds of?
00:22:28
Jets.
00:22:28 Wendy Sedlak
Yeah, I would say we should be concerned. And I would also say that there are opportunities. It's not that these are all bad actors, right, with any sort of group of institutions, you're going to get a diverse array of folks at the table. And I think the focus here is on opportunities, especially when we are talking about.
00:22:50 Wendy Sedlak
Those primarily online institutions, we know that students are once they've stopped out, a number of them are going back to online education. It is more flexible, it's more agile, it can work with their schedules. But what we need in those spaces is.
00:23:06 Wendy Sedlak
Have better support students, right? Including sort of having proactive outreach to students and advising right at the outset, ensuring that those students understand a clear pathway sort of forward and embedding support services sort of directly.
00:23:26 Wendy Sedlak
Into the learning environment so that they can get all these things all at once. So once we know where they're headed right, once we know that they're going to primarily online spaces. I think there's opportunities there to make those spaces a little more welcoming to those students.
00:23:44 Chris Mullin
I agree. And what's what's exciting to me. So some of those institutions are doing this and some institutions we have the opportunity to talk to over time are really looking at what we're traditionally long degree programs, right. When I have my bachelors degree, I showed up and 124 credit hours later I walked.
00:23:59 Chris Mullin
Out with a bachelor.
00:24:00 Chris Mullin
'S degree what? What institutions are starting to do is look at their curriculum and say.
00:24:05 Chris Mullin
Where can I embed things where are appropriate stop out points that add value to the individual right?
00:24:11 Chris Mullin
Is it an associate degree? Maybe. That's maybe that has a value along the path. They earn something especially like in nursing, right? We know that ADN is as good as the BSN. The BSN adds the Bachelors of Science and Nursing adds some administrative components and managerial components which are really important to that. But we know students can also be perfectly fine as a nurse.
00:24:32 Chris Mullin
With an admin degree, right? Or other certificates or certifications embedded within somebody's degree path and taking the chance to look back and say like we have this really strong and wonderful curriculum, right? I'm very proud of the.
00:24:45 Chris Mullin
Private school curriculum. That's 120 credit hours.
00:24:48 Chris Mullin
But I also realize that if I take 12 credit hours hours in graphic design and learn Photoshop and Illustrator and Indesign and core concepts and design.
00:24:58 Chris Mullin
And that person can go get a job and and start working. And the the graphic design field and still have the opportunity to continue forward, right. So how do we start to think about degrees not as separate monolithic things, but as structure continuums. Now the one part and we've done a lot of research, had a lot of research done on this is.
00:25:20 Chris Mullin
When we stack and people leave, they don't really come back, so the sticky widget is, how do we design with embedding in in place in the event that life happens and somebody needs to step away from college because everybody's there cause they want to right? There's no truancy officer that shows up if you don't go to college. It's a choice people make every day to wake.
00:25:38 Chris Mullin
Up and say I'm gonna better myself.
00:25:40 Chris Mullin
But life does happen, right? I mean, if it was one year earlier, my mom had breast cancer and I left the job to move home to take care of her. If that had happened a year earlier, I would have dropped out of college without my credential cuz I that's something I thought I had to do as a son for my mother, right?
00:25:55 Chris Mullin
Those things happen. So if you think about degree programs and chunk them down to component parts that are valuable and of value, if somebody has to leave for a little bit, they can at least leave with that credential in hand and actually have the opportunity to work and build forward. So that's the exciting part. And that's kind of the evolution where I think a lot of the institutions we don't see.
00:26:11 Dakota
Like on the charts right now, really moving towards well and I think that ties back to the credit for prior learning piece of this.
00:26:17 Dakota
Especially if I'm a public 2 year institution which is doing incredibly well.
00:26:21 Dakota
By making sure students with some college no credential come back and earn that first credential, how do I create a policy around credit prior learning so that if you do leave one of these primarily online providers or a private four year institution, I'll just recognize your credit and get you right onto that pathway. So it seems to.
00:26:37 Chris Mullin
Be full circle again. Yeah, absolutely. And States and places up, but.
00:26:41 Chris Mullin
Policies in place, common course numbering and a number of other things have been put in place. Similar program approval processes. We're seeing a lot of revamping of that right now, and people going back and looking at the programs, what are the curriculum in that program?
00:26:54 Chris Mullin
Does actually lead to to jobs and add value to the individuals. So all this is happening together. We can't treat this population as like we're doing this over here, but there's a big value conversation that we're ignoring it all. It all ties together. This is about ensuring students get value for what they're there to learn, right?
00:27:13 Wendy Sedlak
Yeah, I'll say on the embedding.
00:27:15 Wendy Sedlak
Piece and we've talked a lot about this, Chris and myself.
00:27:17 Wendy Sedlak
On stacking versus embedding, embedding is the way to go. It is the way of the future, but it's also the way of the past. We've seen this. I worked on some tact grants and a couple of those were in Wisconsin with a set of technical colleges who did this really well. They they not only were engaged in credit for prior learning as large as part of this large federal grant, but they also.
00:27:37 Wendy Sedlak
Created embedded certificates along the way, so especially with Community College students who often hear the expression that Chris said, life happens right. Life happens and folks have.
00:27:48 Wendy Sedlak
To stop out. But you know, say they've been there for six months. They're often getting a credential along the way. So they are not a part of the some college, no credential population. They can take that credential that they have. It is portable. They can go get a good job with it, and they can still come back. And it's more thinking about how to create systems like that. And that's within two year programs that's within.
00:28:09 Wendy Sedlak
Four year programs and I think that's where we really want states, systems, institutions to start thinking more about.
00:28:17 Dakota
Yeah, it's funny when because, you know, in education, it seems like we reinvent the wheel every 15 to 20 years. And you know, as a classroom teacher, I experienced that. And you know, here you are saying, hey, we've been doing this kind of embedding work. It's time for it to come back. I also, you know, as we talked about with people having a bunch of credits, but no credential, there was a big push for degrees when due way back when reverse transfer.
00:28:37 Dakota
And so it seems like we're kind of revisiting some already really good ideas and materials out there, which is a good thing overall, right?
00:28:44 Dakota
Like, let's go back to some of the things that we know are tried and true to help these.
00:28:48 Dakota
People get their first.
00:28:49 Chris Mullin
Credential. Absolutely. Yeah. We're having a conversation earlier today. Just about that thing is why you set up parallel separate systems over here.
00:28:49 Wendy Sedlak
Yeah.
00:28:58 Chris Mullin
Just embed what we know works. Credit when it's this is all credits. When it's due. This is like Cliff Edelman's tools from the toolbox. 2007, like reinvented, right? But it's important that we all have our own spaces of evolution, right, that turnover among college leadership is pretty high. And so the important part is just to make sure we anchor ourselves in these policies and practices that are there.
00:29:19 Chris Mullin
To best serve students right, and to really make sure that.
00:29:23 Chris Mullin
When we make decisions as policymakers, whether it be policy within your classroom, policy within your department, policy within your college or policy at your state, or the federal government that you take them into, we take them in to look back and say what what have we learned before? Right. And it doesn't have to be new to be good.
00:29:42 Chris Mullin
Because we do always, if we have this thing like it has to be new and innovative to be good.
00:29:46 Chris Mullin
The innovative thing is that your institutions adopting it, that's innovation, right? Yeah.
00:29:51 Wendy Sedlak
Yeah, over and over again. I think we know what works right. I've talked to our president about this. I've been working Lumina almost seven years and right before he hired me, he said. So what works?
00:30:01 Wendy Sedlak
And you know what? Still today, I would say the same thing. So it's not about creating shiny new widgets. And even with the with the dawn of AI, there's a lot that we already know works. And it really just comes down to implementation. And so we need to dust those things off over and over again.
00:30:18 Wendy Sedlak
And really get them that research, that evidence back in the hands of folks who can.
00:30:22 Wendy Sedlak
Make these decisions.
00:30:23 Dakota
Well, Wendy and Chris, thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks for your continued work. I know you guys are a big support of National Student Clearinghouse and producing these really useful reports. I think. I hope people dig into this because I do think there's a lot of things that you can do and leverage from this information no matter where you're in the system, if you're a higher Ed practitioner, if you're hired leader, state policymaker or think tank person, your philanthropy, whoever might be, I think.
00:30:45 Dakota
There's a lot of.
00:30:46 Dakota
The usefulness to take out even more so than we even had a chance to dig into, but thanks.
00:30:49 Dakota
For joining me today, really appreciate it.
00:30:51 Wendy Sedlak
Thank you. Appreciate it, Dakota.
00:30:52 Chris Mullin
Thank you for the opportunity.
00:30:59 Dakota
Hello, everyone. Welcome back. You know, as we just heard from Wendy and Chris, there are 43,000,000 Americans that are in this population of having some college credit. They've gone to, you know, post secondary, earned some classes, earned some credit, but have yet to earn that first credential.
00:31:16 Dakota
And you know the we've heard about some of the reasons of why some of these folks might not have completed financial troubles, a car breaks down. You need to care for family. You have to work a lot of different reasons. But it begs the question.
00:31:29 Dakota
Then what can we do to change the trajectory? The potential, the opportunity for some folks to not only come back and reenroll, but ultimately complete. And I'm joined now by Sally Glickman. She's the managing director for comeback, her completion initiatives at the Burning Glass Institute. Sally has been long on the forefront.
00:31:50 Dakota
Of trying to serve adults who fall into the some college. No degree, no credential population, oftentimes called comeback. Hers. Sally, thanks so much for joining us today.
00:32:01 Sallie Glickman
Thank you for having me, Dakota.
00:32:03 Dakota
Yeah, absolutely. It's always a pleasure to talk to you and I know you've been working on this for as long as I've known you, but under burning glass, you all have been doing some pretty interesting things, looking at using big data and trying to figure out why some students may or may not be re enrolling and also.
00:32:22 Dakota
Trying to add some insights from to some folks to try to change that trajectory. Tell us a little bit about the tool that you've all been building.
00:32:30 Sallie Glickman
Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Dakota. It's really been an interesting journey for 20 years, we have been, I think, actively working in this space. And there have been myriad programs and initiatives, both community based programs like the talent like your talent hubs that you work with.
00:32:50 Sallie Glickman
College based programs that are looking to bring back adults, but what we never really understood was absent any intervention or or in the current state of affairs in this country.
00:33:02 Sallie Glickman
Who comes back? Who is likely to reenroll, and of the people who reenroll, who has a high probability of completing or what percentage have?
00:33:12 Sallie Glickman
A high probability.
00:33:13 Sallie Glickman
Of completing and because we couldn't answer that question and we really want to start segmenting this huge population.
00:33:21 Sallie Glickman
You know, it's 4043 million people who we have essentially been treating as if they are all the same, right, because they are over 25 and they have some credit. You know, how might we start to unpack how we could?
00:33:40 Sallie Glickman
Design and develop services that really move the needle at scale by understanding who they are and why they come and why they might come back and what characteristics are predictors of them coming back. So, for example, what jobs do they have? What industries do they work?
00:34:00 Sallie Glickman
On, you know, do they work in? How old are they? What part of the country do they live in? And there are differentials across all of those.
00:34:12 Sallie Glickman
Factors. So it's exciting for the first time to be able to talk about this in macro numbers, not just you know, how many people in a particular program were served and what you know, what were their characteristics?
00:34:26 Dakota
Yeah, that's such a helpful thing. I think we'll start a little bit on that segmentation. You know, we talked earlier in the first segment with Wendy and Chris.
00:34:33 Dakota
How the Nationals doing clearing house?
00:34:35 Dakota
Has segmented this group of 43,000,000 into potential completers and recent stop outs, but you're actually talking about a further segmentation and I find it interesting that you're even segmenting out of those who do enroll. What is the likelihood that they'll actually complete or actually stop out again?
00:34:55 Dakota
Can you talk to me about why it's important for us to further segment out this monolithic population?
00:35:02 Sallie Glickman
Well, I, I mean so, so I'll talk with about some of the things that we that we discovered. So for example of if you look at the population in the US that that falls into a 50% or greater. So more than even probability of re enrolling because.
00:35:23 Sallie Glickman
They look like people who are likely to who haven't more than even probability of re enrolling 9% of of that population actually ends up re enrolling.
00:35:37 Sallie Glickman
So the first thing that you start to discover is where is, where is a group.
00:35:44 Sallie Glickman
That maybe you could do a better job of connecting them like where is that huge opportunity? So you think about it, it's the you know, how do you address?
00:35:54 Sallie Glickman
The.
00:35:55 Sallie Glickman
How do you go from 43 million to a reasonable addressable market if you will, the other the other question.
00:36:05 Sallie Glickman
Is.
00:36:06 Sallie Glickman
Is there pent up demand or intent among people who have very low probability of returning?
00:36:15 Sallie Glickman
And is there and and does that, for example look different or look?
00:36:21 Sallie Glickman
Or does that for example look like people who are coming into community based programs raising their hand and saying yes, I would very much like to and what we can understand from that is that they are not seeing pathways back in current state, but that if you can build.
00:36:41 Sallie Glickman
That are on ramps for that.
00:36:44 Sallie Glickman
They you might have better returns possibilities. We can also look at industries. One of the factors about who goes back is what industry they work in. So for example, municipal workers have a slightly higher likelihood of going back.
00:37:04 Sallie Glickman
And so if you thought about, well, where are the gaps in adults with call it with them, who lack certain credentials or degrees that would enable them to fill spaces in the municipal workforce where there are shortages of workers with those credentials, might you start to think about targeted?
00:37:24 Sallie Glickman
Interventions in that sector that could both support upward mobility for individuals but also meet an acute demand among.
00:37:36 Sallie Glickman
You know, employers across the country.
00:37:39 Dakota
I love this because it is you're working with big data. I myself am famous. I would say for being a laggard adopter of most things like I, you know, when I was teaching in in Chicago, like, my 7th graders had an iPhone before I did. You know? So like, I'm a notorious laggard adopter. But.
00:37:58 Dakota
I do love this application of of really big data.
00:38:02 Dakota
To reveal some insights that can be very useful. You started talking about some of the indicators. Some of the you know metrics that might go into determining ones probability of re enrollment and completion. And I just even a little, I want to dig into that because you gave us a little list, you mentioned the job, the industry of course.
00:38:22 Dakota
Where they live those.
00:38:23 Dakota
Says, you know, my simpleton brain goes to well, I mean, it might be a simple equation. Do you have enough money and time to go to school? If so, then I guess you're likely to is higher. But I'm a tuba player, so could you, you know, not not a math whiz, could you? Could you break it down a bit more and tell us a bit more about some of the indicators that actually?
00:38:43 Dakota
Determine ones you know. Predictability score.
00:38:47 Sallie Glickman
Well, so the there's obvious ones, right age, you know the the you're more likely to go back to school in your 30s than you are in your 50s for example, where you live is A is a big factor and that probably has.
00:39:07 Sallie Glickman
We haven't done this research yet, but that probably has something to do with what's going on in your state. You know, sort of how you know how those things are incentivized, so geography matter.
00:39:20 Sallie Glickman
Others ancestral background matters right? Women gender is one of the the factors, but again it all it's it's not so much how.
00:39:33 Sallie Glickman
How these things individually work? It isn't, you know, women are more likely than men mean, that is, that is actually true.
00:39:41 Sallie Glickman
So, but it is the combination of more than 30 different factors that allow you to get to a probability score for an individual and that makes it and that makes it pretty exciting. I come out of a very local.
00:40:01 Sallie Glickman
Programming right? I I really care about individuals and so I.
00:40:07 Sallie Glickman
You know, I would push against something like this because I don't. I mean, everybody is an individual and we should think about everybody as an individual with their unique, with their unique aspirations and you know, hurdles.
00:40:23 Sallie Glickman
At that said, it's really interesting to know if a local program, for example, is moving the needle for an an entirely untapped population. So they're turning on the spicket of opportunity for a group that.
00:40:40 Sallie Glickman
Without that program existing would not ever make their way back, even though they desire.
00:40:46 Sallie Glickman
To do so.
00:40:47 Sallie Glickman
Versus an intervention that is moving the needle, you know, working with high probability people to help them return and to complete, because even of the.
00:41:00 Sallie Glickman
Even of the 9% that re enroll.
00:41:04 Sallie Glickman
You know, not very many, not very more than half of them will stop out again. So there's a lot of work to be done across this continuum, but the kind of work that you could do looks different based on somebody potentially could look different based on somebody's probability. So I do honestly geek out on this.
00:41:24 Sallie Glickman
A little bit because I think it has very interesting applications at the point at which local programs start using this kind of modeling to understand their own services and their own impact.
00:41:40 Dakota
As you were developing some of the you know indicators the 30 or more indicators go into. Were there some that you all looked into that ended up not making not being relevant what what what what what get left on the editing floor?
00:41:56 Sallie Glickman
Well, the characteristics are tied to characteristics that you can identify.
00:42:01 Sallie Glickman
In the current population survey and the American Community Survey, so the answer is no, but some are. I would say, you know, some are drivers, right? So so some, you know, geography, industry, age, gender.
00:42:22 Sallie Glickman
Are going to have, you know, maybe more of an out to income are going to have maybe more of an outsized impact on where somebody falls in terms of their probability score. It's important to understand though.
00:42:38 Sallie Glickman
That again, every person is an individual, so regardless of what your probability score is, you know if if you you can graduate like this is not a if the probability score is low, that means that person is never going to complete and I always get nervous.
00:42:59 Sallie Glickman
I will say that you know, there's always a caveat with something like this.
00:43:02 Sallie Glickman
Yes, that we don't use it to just to decide that there are certain people who don't deserve to be served or shouldn't be supported. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't want that to be that wouldn't wouldn't want that to be a factor. But it is interesting if you have.
00:43:22 Sallie Glickman
For example, a dearth of men with degrees, it's helpful to know, you know.
00:43:30 Sallie Glickman
You know what would in what would help?
00:43:34 Sallie Glickman
What would help to move the needle on their probability score so that they are more likely to to re enroll as an as an example?
00:43:44 Dakota
Yeah, I can definitely see how this could be used by, you know, folks who are are looking at the data and saying, you know what, how is this particular group of people, you know, either supported or not supported by our current system and what might, what might we do? And I and I do find it interesting because there is an opportunity.
00:44:04 Dakota
I completely agree that your probability does not determine your destiny.
00:44:09 Dakota
Absolutely. And I also know that there are many communities, institutions, states higher Ed leaders, you name it out here, who would hear this and say, well, how might we actually increase the probability? How do we make it a little bit easier? And but I I think the challenge here that I'm I'm curious to get your perspective on is that.
00:44:28 Dakota
Some of these characteristics.
00:44:30 Dakota
You know, can't really be, can't really be moved. You know, you can't necessarily change your ancestral background. It is pretty hard sometimes to change your geography. You might have school children in great schools you can't up and move, or maybe you're tied to a particular job, you know, out of the different characteristics you're looking at. How many of them roughly.
00:44:50 Dakota
Do we actually have control over to introduce a set of interventions that might actually move one's probability?
00:44:58 Sallie Glickman
I I would think about it differently.
00:45:02 Sallie Glickman
I would think about where are the interventions. So where is that? Where are the? Where are the talent hubs, for example, who are working with adults to help?
00:45:12 Sallie Glickman
Them complete.
00:45:14 Sallie Glickman
Who are they serving? Can we can we look at how each person that's get getting an intervention? Where do they fall on that probability modeling and then what are the what are the supports or services that increase the likelihood that?
00:45:34 Sallie Glickman
That an individual with a currently low probability ends up with a great outcome.
00:45:41 Sallie Glickman
So I would think about it, I would think about it differently, not how do you change the characteristics of somebody of you know, how do you change somebody, not how how would you change somebody's characteristics, but how do we, how do we craft sets of interventions and supports?
00:45:59 Dakota
I think I hear your point. You know it's like.
00:46:01 Dakota
Hey, listen, you know the the goal might not be to change the individual, but to change the system that the individual situated in and. And I think that is a that is a really, really valid point. You know, I I guess that one of the things I'm curious obviously you are not providing.
00:46:17 Dakota
An individual person with their probability score. You know that's not what this tool does. At least I doubt that you all were doing that. Yeah, OK, not not doing that. But I'm. I guess I'm in a hypothetical world. Let's just say that people did have access to their probability score, similar to you have access to a credit score, and you want to improve.
00:46:24 Sallie Glickman
Now.
00:46:37 Dakota
Your.
00:46:37 Dakota
Score. You know, I guess I'm curious from the individual who is in this population of saying I really want to finish my credential and I do have some credit, you know, is there anything in your tool or in your modeling that an individual person could say, oh, if I do these kinds of things, I'm going to be much more likely?
00:46:56 Dakota
To complete.
00:46:57 Sallie Glickman
I don't, I don't. I I wouldn't use it that way. I would think about this as a as a as a real as.
00:47:05 Sallie Glickman
I would think about this as a tool for practitioners.
00:47:11 Sallie Glickman
To.
00:47:13 Sallie Glickman
Sort and think about how they provide how they optimize their service mix to increase the probability or the likelihood that somebody would have a successful outcome.
00:47:26 Sallie Glickman
And I would not think about it as.
00:47:31 Sallie Glickman
As a as something that an individual needs to change, I mean our characteristics are our characteristics.
00:47:38 Sallie Glickman
And no judgment. So you know and but but I think as a system being able to segment and appreciate how individual characteristics have bearing on what kinds of levers are going to be.
00:47:58 Sallie Glickman
The most supported.
00:48:01 Sallie Glickman
To help to help an individual achieve their goals is useful for the for the person you know persisting, you know and making a good decision about reenrollment, you know persisting and.
00:48:20 Sallie Glickman
Really thinking about the kinds of choices that they make in terms of what they, you know, their course of study.
00:48:26 Sallie Glickman
And understanding of the job market and understanding of the provider that you know the education provider they engage with are really important and that is true whether you have a 95% probability of re enrolling or a 5% probability of re enrolling, I mean.
00:48:46 Sallie Glickman
It makes it makes no difference if you are an individual going through that experience.
00:48:51 Dakota
So obviously, you know, we're talking about certain use cases here of institutions, Community states, you know that that can really use this tool, you know, and you've built it with the practitioner of mind. You yourself coming from that local space, as you said earlier, you know in your minds eye in a hypothetical world you know, how do you how do you hope that this tool is used?
00:49:11 Dakota
Out in the field once it's ready for full use.
00:49:14
Yeah.
00:49:15 Sallie Glickman
Thank you for that. I I you know as you mentioned, I come from a local background. So my the the use case that I am most excited about is our organizations, local practitioners who are who are serving, who are at the point of service.
00:49:35 Sallie Glickman
Who are you know, trying to support people to go back and complete a degree or credential that's going to have some economic value to them?
00:49:46 Sallie Glickman
And so embedding it inside of whatever their CRM's are right understanding. Having this be another point of understanding as much so that we can report and track, right. So we can tie you know.
00:50:05 Sallie Glickman
What helped people based on their probability scores, which effectively are in some ways proxies for a mix of characteristics, right, so you know, worked. What works really well for somebody with, you know.
00:50:21 Sallie Glickman
Of a certain age with a certain amount of credits working in a certain industry, is there some combination of services that is the home run 90% of the time? You know, could we get smarter about the way in which we serve people based on, you know, the a mix of characteristics?
00:50:42 Sallie Glickman
And probabilities. So that's one use case I think looking at.
00:50:48 Sallie Glickman
Where institutions, specific institutions.
00:50:52 Sallie Glickman
Are having success and understanding the populations.
00:50:57 Sallie Glickman
For whom that particular institution is a really good match.
00:51:05 Sallie Glickman
Has an this this has potential to help us understand that better.
00:51:11 Sallie Glickman
Number one, but also to help the institution look at where.
00:51:17 Sallie Glickman
It's maybe not as successful as it could be, so that it it too can help improve pathways. And can you know success for people they wish to serve, right? Can we start to understand this population again, not just as returning adults, but as individuals with a set of characteristics.
00:51:41 Sallie Glickman
And, you know, and an opportunity and a desire to complete.
00:51:46 Dakota
Yeah. And I I appreciate that too, because I think there is a a lot of different groups. What I'm hearing from you too is that it's not an exclusive use, right? It's there, you know, you think about, for example, you mentioned you know the characteristic of your job, the industry you're working in, and we know that, you know, certain Union groups.
00:52:06 Dakota
You know, certain associations, professional associations. You know, if I'm working as a healthcare union and I do want to make sure that more people can actually get there for the next credential that they need, this could be really useful for me to say, OK, if we look at those who are in healthcare, in the city that I care about.
00:52:23 Dakota
Out you know, how might we as a labor union or professional association might be contribute to this? Do you also see some use cases from a employer demand industry side of things?
00:52:34 Sallie Glickman
Absolutely, especially because we can look at industry like we can say, you know you've got.
00:52:45 Sallie Glickman
A lot of comebacker's people who who are likely to reenroll right are in, you know, healthcare. They're in sales roles, they're in food service roles. They have the high, they have, you know, all of these occupations have high likelihoods of coming back.
00:53:05 Sallie Glickman
Where this gets.
00:53:06 Sallie Glickman
Even more interesting is if you think about where do we have shortages or opportunities for people with advanced credentials or or, you know, a bachelor's degree, for example, where those industries or occupations become feeder roles, right? One of the things that.
00:53:28 Sallie Glickman
We are that's been in the news recently is a report that my organization did no no country for new grads, which is talking about the.
00:53:43 Sallie Glickman
The less than stellar outlook for jobs for for new four year degree, for for, for new graduates with a bachelor's degree. What that signals to us is that while that group isn't doing really well, employers value.
00:54:02 Sallie Glickman
Experience because you know us mid career people or late career in my case, people with degrees have a.
00:54:13 Sallie Glickman
Doing pretty well still. So employers evaluating are valuing experience well. You've got a lot of people with experience who have been working in the you know have however many years but have yet to get a degree. Is this, does this become an opportunity, right? How is how is this an opportunity for us to think about?
00:54:34 Sallie Glickman
Adults in an in a new way as a perspective group that could go back so understanding where they are, what occupations they're in.
00:54:44 Sallie Glickman
Where they might be feeder, where they might feed into source roles that require degrees starts to get really exciting, right in terms of understanding, you know, how we could apply practice.
00:54:58 Sallie Glickman
How we could apply this to designing new models or targeting new groups that have been previously relatively until?
00:55:08 Dakota
Yeah. So, I mean, I think this whole conversation is exciting. Again, we know that there are boutique programs in communities and institutions within states. We know that many more states are starting to invest, whether that's through, you know, grant programs that you know, increase advising services, all the kinds of things that we need.
00:55:26 Dakota
But I also am very appreciative that you and your colleagues at the Burning Glass Institute are also really saying, you know, how can we deploy?
00:55:33 Sallie Glickman
Some big data. What I what I would say is.
00:55:37 Sallie Glickman
That big data is is important, right? This conversation is is important. This this modeling is significant.
00:55:48 Sallie Glickman
At the same time it you know, just to to sort of end where we started, every individual is is you know every individual is unique.
00:56:00 Dakota
I appreciate that, though, you know, in the midst of big data, you know we can't get lost in the big data. You know, there are still individuals, there are people out here who are, you know, have everyday life that they have to contend with and everyday aspirations that they also must contend with. And you know what great and noble work for us to show up every day and try to change one life at a time.
00:56:22 Dakota
And using big data can help us do.
00:56:23 Dakota
That.
00:56:24 Sallie Glickman
Excellent, absolutely. Extremely well said as always, because I really appreciate, I really appreciate.
00:56:31 Sallie Glickman
Chatting with you.
00:56:33 Sallie Glickman
And I, you know, my hope, my aspiration is, is this. This becomes a really important tool that continues to support the great work that's happening in this field and, you know, allows us to move toward luminous big goal, which I think is is really important.
00:56:54 Sallie Glickman
And you know, doesn't we don't leave anybody behind, right? We have opportunity. We still have opportunities despite what we see.
00:57:01 Sallie Glickman
In the news, there's.
00:57:01 Sallie Glickman
Huge opportunities and as our economy transforms, a degree is still currency. That.
00:57:08 Sallie Glickman
Matters and helping understanding how we can optimize services and solutions for adults who aspire to to move into the college labor market is huge. So.
00:57:23 Dakota
Well, I'm excited to see how places and people use this tool to see.
00:57:29 Dakota
What comes of it to see future iteration, Sally Glickman of the Burning Glass Institute. Thank you so much for joining me today and for your, you know, lifelong work to improve outcomes for comebacker, as I really appreciate knowing you and having some time today.
00:57:41 Sallie Glickman
Thank you so much, Dakota. It's a pleasure.
00:57:47
Yeah.
00:57:50 Chris Mullin
Hey everyone.
00:57:50 Dakota
Welcome back. You know what's clear to me is that this group of people, 43,000,000 Americans, a group larger than the population of California, deserves the chance to reenroll and succeed. And we as a country need them to succeed.
00:58:08 Dakota
With more and more jobs requiring some credential or training or education after high school, whether it's a certificate or degree, our economy and our communities cannot afford to leave these folks.
00:58:20 Dakota
Kind. There are many national, state and local efforts to redesign education systems, making pathways back into higher education possible.
00:58:29 Dakota
That requires us to address issues, though, that are often outside of education. We need to address the high cost of living so more people aren't forced to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet, and so they can actually pursue additional training.
00:58:43 Dakota
We need to make childcare accessible and affordable, allowing mothers, fathers and caregivers a chance to spend the time on learning new skills for their next job or promotion.
00:58:53 Dakota
And we need to address the ballooning cost of higher education, making high quality learning after high school available to everyone, no matter their financial position.
00:59:03 Dakota
The good news is that there is innovation happening. We have new and better connected data sets that are generating new insights on how to best serve those students who stopped up before completing their first credential.
00:59:15 Dakota
I just hope we move further, larger and faster to support our neighbors, friends, employees, children and parents who might have had to defer their dreams of prosperity due to circumstance.
00:59:29 Dakota
That's all the time we have for today. My thanks to Wendy Sedlak, Chris Mullen and Sally Glickman for joining me and sharing more about their work. Our show is produced by Amy Bartner, Matthew Jenkins, Mike Jensen and me, Dakota Palicki, Deborah Humphries and Kevin Corcoran provide leadership for Lumina strategic engagement efforts. As always, if you have an idea for something that we should cover.
00:59:50 Dakota
Be sure to drop us a line at luminafoundation.org.
00:59:53 Dakota
Thanks so much for joining us.
00:59:54 Dakota
We'll see you next time.
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