MAE 2010 Volume: 5 Issue: 8 (October)
The Lumina Foundation for Education has set its sights on 2025. It wants 60 percent of Americans to have a college degree 15 years from now. This is an ambitious goal considering that only about 38 percent of working Americans currently possess a two-year college degree or higher.
But the foundation has already made some progress, bolstering attention to raise college-completion rates at the federal, state and institutional levels. And ongoing proposals in several states to base higher education spending decisions on performance could factor heavily into taking bigger strides towards this vision.
“When we first set this big goal we knew it would be ambitious, but now it is clear that not only is it necessary—it is also realistic and attainable,” said Jamie Merisotis, Lumina’s president and CEO. “Different states have different challenges, but all states have a clear pathway to increase attainment rates.”
I wish Lumina well on its path, but looking ahead there are foreseeable obstacles, namely budgets and political will. And then there is the simple math. The United States will only increase the number of new college graduates by about 112,000 each year (less than half the amount needed to reach the 60 percent goal) if degree production continues to grow at the current rate.
The foundation recently released a report, A Stronger Nation through Higher Education, that pointed out that each year states must increase the number of college degrees awarded by a total of nearly 280,000 to meet the 2025 goal. Wyoming, for example, would have to add about 61,000 additional college degrees, while California would need to add more than 4.7 million.
That sounds like a tough hill to climb—but there’s no question it would be worth it. Dewayne Matthews, Lumina’s vice president for policy and strategy, agrees: “One of the biggest developments in this year’s report is the strength of the relationship between higher education and the economy. People are beginning to understand that job growth is a structural issue, and that higher education is the key to economic growth.” True enough. But are we putting the cart before the horse?
 Mark Fitzgerald, Editor 301-670-5700 x118 markf@kmimediagroup.com |
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