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A project to improve the value of workforce credentials

This Lumina Foundation profile describes how Mississippi is using data to decide which short-term credentials are worth students’ time and money.

This Lumina Foundation profile looks at Tennessee’s work to make short-term credentials clearer, more useful and more connected to good jobs.

This UnidosUS report looks at why many Latino students who want to finish college are still pushed off track.

This Lumina Foundation profile explains how Connecticut is trying to build stronger routes from education and training into good jobs.

AIR’s Guide to Higher Education Federal Earnings Data, written by Dr. Alexandria Walton Radford of Sova, provides a side-by-side comparison of four federal sources of postsecondary earnings data: the Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS), College Scorecard, Census Bureau’s Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO) Explorer, and IRS-supported Secure Query System. The guide compares their purposes, earnings measures, populations, and coverage; examines potential financial aid and reputational implications; and identifies opportunities for institutions to use these data to better understand program outcomes and support institutional improvement.

Across Lumina’s State Attainment Collaborative (SAC) cohort, states are making significant progress in bringing people together to advance value- centered attainment goals. See examples of state progress.

Advancing an Aspirational Vision for Higher Education

The demand for short-term credential programs is growing, and state leaders are responding. In 2025, a total of $8.1 billion was spent across 34 states to help students and institutions deliver high-quality, short-term education and training programs. This growing state investment, combined with Workforce Pell, has states contending with new issues: How will states approve […]

Not everyone has to go to college, but everyone should know if they could. Across the country, thousands of students are finding out about their college options without having to apply. They’re already in, based on how they do in high school. Direct admission programs are clearing the way to college, instead of hoping students […]

A student’s course schedule is one of the most consequential (and often overlooked) factors shaping whether they stay on track for their degree or credential. Yet the path to earning a degree or credential remains unnecessarily difficult for far too many students. Beyond juggling work, family, financial, and academic demands, they can also encounter barriers […]

This report looks at whether U.S. colleges and universities have more teaching capacity than they are actually using. In simple terms, it asks: do schools have enough students to match the number of instructors, programs, classrooms, and academic resources they have built? The report finds that, in many places, the answer is increasingly no.

“Where can I learn to fix boat engines?” my teenage son asked one day.

Intentional Futures and Lumina Foundation collaborated to envision a integrated federal education and training data system.

We want to strengthen democracy systems, build more trust between colleges and communities, and improve students’ sense of purpose in their college journeys.

At Lumina Foundation, data and measurement help us understand progress, support partners, and strengthen the field’s ability to help more people earn credentials of value.

For decades, colleges benefited from a simple assumption: prestige signaled value. A bachelor’s degree from a respected institution was widely seen as the gold standard, while community colleges and certificates occupied lower rungs of the educational hierarchy.

This search is being managed by NonprofitHR, a talent search firm focused exclusively on the needs of the social sector.

Advisors are among the most consequential professionals on a college campus. But often the systems in place around them don’t reflect that reality.