With funding ranging from $80,000–$100,000 for up to 15 institutions, this opportunity goes beyond grant support—it offers the chance to shape national practice, join a peer learning community, and access technical assistance from experts in the field.
Lumina Foundation is committed to creating a post-high school learning environment that’s accessible, lifelong, and prepares everyone for a global future. To realize this vision, Lumina works to ensure that, by 2040, 75 percent of adults in the U.S. labor force will have a college degree or other credential of value leading to economic prosperity. Central to this vision is scaling career-connected high-impact practices (HIPs) in higher education—experiences like internships, undergraduate research, study abroad, service learning, and capstone projects that bridge academic learning with real-world workforce preparation.
HIPs consistently and effectively promote student engagement, deep learning, and degree completion. When intentionally aligned with career pathways, these experiences further support students’ readiness for the workforce, help close gaps in student outcomes, and strengthen connections between academic learning and labor market needs.
Initially introduced as an “umbrella” concept to capture a vision for next-generation teaching and learning, HIPs quickly gained traction and became widely adopted across higher education. However, HIPs were often reduced to checklists rather than deeply integrated curricular programs and pathways.
Today, the field is undergoing a critical shift. We now understand that simply offering HIPs is not enough. Success depends not just on their presence, but on how well they are implemented and who has access to them. To truly fulfill their promise, HIPs must be delivered with intentionality, integrated into students’ academic and career pathways, and designed to ensure participation and meaningful outcomes for all learners—especially Black, Hispanic, Latino, and Native American students, as well as students from low-income families.
This new era of HIPs calls for innovation, alignment, and scale to move beyond checked boxes to transform the undergraduate experience in inclusive, career-connected ways.
Lumina Foundation is seeking letters of interest for a grant opportunity for up to 15 institutions to scale career-connected HIPs on their campuses. Applicants must seek to pursue ambitious and innovative HIPs strategies, but the benefits extend far beyond the direct funding to support this work, including:
This request for information will gauge initial institutional interest, readiness, and commitment to scaling career-connected HIPs. We are seeking brief responses from bachelor’s degree-granting colleges and universities that have demonstrated foundational progress in implementing HIPs and are well-positioned to better align them to the skills and competencies employers need and want.
We seek to ensure that experiences like studying abroad provide clear, transparent outcomes that prepare students for the workforce. Additionally, we welcome submissions from institutions that have codified student employment or work-study programs as HIPs.
After reviewing responses, we will invite a subset of institutions to submit a full proposal. (Timeline provided below.)
Only institutions that meet the following criteria will be considered:
Priority consideration will be given to the following:
The deadline is Oct. 24 at midnight PDT.
Find the application link below ↓
Institutions will be asked to submit an initial letter of interest by replying to the following prompts:
All applications must be submitted via Lumina’s Submittable portal.
Responses must be submitted by Oct. 24, 2025 by 11:59pm PT.
The initial application/letter of interest responses must be submitted by Oct. 24, 2025.
Next steps: A select subset of institutions will be invited to submit a full proposal on Nov. 3, 2025, with a deadline for submitting the full proposal by Nov. 21, 2025. We will notify grant recipients by Dec. 17, 2025.
For questions, please email CCHIPS@luminafoundation.org.
The deadline is Oct. 24 at midnight PDT.
This call for letters of interest is to gauge initial institutional interest, readiness, and commitment to scaling career-connected high-impact practices (HIPs). We are seeking responses from four-year colleges and universities that have demonstrated foundational progress in implementing career-connected HIPs and are well-positioned to execute grant-funded projects to scale and institutionalize these practices.
Jasmine Haywood • Oct. 2, 2025
As a senior in college, I remember pouring my energy into my capstone project. As a graphic design major, that project culminated everything I had learned—a portfolio piece I was proud of. But when I, a short time later, sat across from potential employers, I wasn’t sure how to talk about it. How did the long hours of research, iteration, and critique translate into skills that mattered to the workplace? How could I connect the dots between my academic work and the competencies employers were actually looking for?
