The Lumina Foundation’s Ambitious but Attainable Goal for American Postsecondary Education
In 2008, the Lumina Foundation, an independent private foundation in Indianapolis, issued a challenge to American higher education, what it called its “Big Goal.” By 2025, it said, 60 percent of working-age adults nationwide should have earned a college degree or other postsecondary credential such as certificates or industry certifications. At the time, only 38 percent of American adults possessed at least one of those credentials.
The goal captured the attention of the higher ed sector partly because it was clear, concise, and compelling—but also because, with nearly $1 billion in assets, Lumina was willing to provide serious money to institutions that shared its vision. Those resources helped state officials, policymakers, and higher-ed leaders complement their traditional attention to expanding access to postsecondary education with stronger efforts to ensure more students earned college degrees or completed training programs that resulted in a certificate or other credential.
Today, 55 percent of American adults have a postsecondary credential, according to the latest version of A Stronger Nation, Lumina’s online, interactive tracking tool. That’s five percentage points short of the foundation’s goal but serious progress, nonetheless.
Yet if attainment is up, higher education’s reputation is down. That’s partially because of politics—faith in the sector has cratered among conservatives, not liberals. Still, Americans across party lines think college has become unaffordable, and institutions of higher learning are facing increasing political pressure to show that the degrees they grant meet the needs of employers and lead to real income gains for graduates.
On March 4, Lumina released a new version of its big goal—one that both reflects the tough new environment higher education finds itself in and bets big on the sector’s ability to meet the challenge. As part of an updated strategic framework, Lumina has announced that by 2040, it wants 75 percent of working-age adults in the labor force to have either college degrees or other “credentials of value” that lead to economic prosperity.
Lumina’s new 75 percent goal for credential attainment might sound pollyannish given all the negative press recently about higher education. However, the American public’s belief in the economic benefits of postsecondary education—be that a traditional four-year degree or some form of workforce training—remains extraordinarily high. Lumina is certainly setting the attainment bar high, but not unrealistically so.
Lumina is also raising the bar with its new “credentials of value” metric. Rather than merely measuring levels of educational attainment, as it did in 2008, Lumina’s new goal will only count degrees and credentials that lead to incomes at least 15 percent greater than the median annual earnings of a high-school graduate. This reflects a recognition that the number one reason students give for going to college is that they want to become prepared for a good job. And it also provides a good indication of the current state of higher education reform—the sector has seen notable improvements, but colleges are facing increasing pressure to achieve better tangible results for the students they serve and the economy they are expected to help grow.
“Higher education should be a gateway to real opportunity for every aspiring student,” said Jamie Merisotis, Lumina’s president and CEO, in the foundation’s news release. “We must take action to remove barriers so that more people—regardless of who they are or where they’re from—can earn degrees and credentials that empower them to continue to learn, create change in communities, and find meaningful livelihoods.” To reach the 2040 goal, Lumina will prioritize its grantmaking to projects that not only broaden college access but also lead to credentials that provide measurable economic benefits. That includes rethinking how education and workforce systems are structured, funded, and governed to serve students better. Lumina will give special attention to assisting community colleges, regional public universities, and institutions serving working adults and students from low-income families who are the first in their families to go to college or from communities of color.
In the new framework, Lumina’s focus on a wage premium represents its first stab at quantifying credentials of value. Still, it plans to supplement that with other measures in the future. For example, it might develop additional metrics that tap ROI, job satisfaction, career stability, community prosperity, or income growth over time. Those would be good additions, broadening what is meant by the concept of value.
The Lumina Foundation’s initial focus on an attainment agenda helped drive a steady, much-needed increase in the number of Americans with postsecondary credentials over the past two decades. States took up the call, often directing a portion of their higher education appropriations towards improved college completion rather than just rewarding institutions for larger enrollments. Colleges, in turn, increased their efforts to retain and graduate more students, and they began offering more short-term certificates in addition to traditional associate’s and bachelor’s degrees.
Now, with its sights set higher, Lumina’s new goal has the potential for significant influence once again. It’s poised to shape higher education policy as states consider possible incentives for increasing the number of their citizens with credentials of value. Institutions, in turn, are likely to examine their own academic programs more closely, reinforcing those with proven economic value and strengthening or perhaps weeding out those that fall short.
While there are risks to defining the value of higher education solely in terms of its economic benefits, it does not seem unreasonable to expect any postsecondary program to produce at least a modest financial benefit for most students. The Lumina Foundation has a proven track record for promoting greater educational access and attainment. Now, it’s embracing its next challenge—helping higher education become a more effective path to greater economic prosperity.
