Expanding Opportunity for Today’s Students
Higher Learning Advocates’ new strategic plan
It’s a new chapter for Higher Learning Advocates. Our first five years were filled with lessons, successes, and collaborations in concert with our valued partners–successes actually accelerated by the pandemic and roiling political waters.
Now, we’re looking forward — and I’m proud to share with you where we’re headed. First, here’s a tl;dr summary of our new strategic plan for 2022–2025.
Expanding Opportunity for Today’s Students:
Advancing policy
- Supporting students
- Connecting opportunities
- Delivering value
Raising the profile
- Amplifying learners’ voices and needs
- Celebrating champions
Connecting systems
- Linking higher education with workforce, skills, and training programs
So what does this all mean? And for whom?
For some readers, this point may seem obvious but I want to emphasize our overarching commitment to always put today’s students first.
In our Today’s Students Coalition, and in listening to our partners and allies, numbers of untold stories have been shared about the challenges and needs these students face in the pursuit of higher education. As advocates, we are committed to listening and acting with students at the center. And as a nonpartisan organization, we strive to elevate students’ stories in ways that resonate on both sides of the aisle.
So, what’s in the plan?
In our new strategic plan — Expanding Opportunity for Today’s Students — we outline our objectives for 2022–2025 and I invite you to take a look. This plan is the result of an iterative process with our terrific HLA team, our Board of Directors, and key stakeholders.
We will continue to tirelessly work to make systemic changes in policy so that all of today’s students have the tools to succeed, achieve, and prosper. The world has changed at lightning speed in the past few years and with it comes greater challenges. We will build on our reform efforts to date and continue to advocate for policies that support students, connect opportunity, and deliver value.
What you’ll see in our new plan is that we will intensify our work advancing policy and raising the profile of learners’ voices, needs, and champions.
We’re especially excited about our third goal — connecting systems — working to strengthen the ties between higher education, workforce, and training systems and delivering these messages to Capitol Hill, the White House, and other key policymakers nationwide. This means making new friends and developing partnerships to link these too-often disparate systems. School and work, skills and training, credentials and degrees — it’s no longer tenable to silo these concepts.
For far too long there has been a divide between “training” and “education” policies and systems. That said, as we strive to build a bridge between the two worlds, we are hyper-aware that this division does not exist for today’s students. Students are attending degree programs AND apprenticeships. Colleges AND on-the-job training. Certificates alongside degrees. It’s past time that we create systems and structures that support this reality.
So I invite you to read more about our ambitious, deepened commitment to help solve the challenges facing today’s learners. Because demonstrating the value of postsecondary education for today’s learners has never felt more urgent.
I founded Higher Learning Advocates to improve postsecondary outcomes for today’s students through policy change. Could I have imagined what our world would look like today? Absolutely not. But by putting today’s students at the center of our mission, we continue our work with optimism and a clear-eyed dedication to progress, and I am so excited for this next chapter.
