Lumina Foundation issues new challenge for education, training attainment | Schools

The Lumina Foundation on Thursday launched a redesigned website and an aggressive goal meant to boost household income nationwide. The new challenge comes after 45 states fell short of Lumina’s last goal.

The Indianapolis-based foundation is continuing its push to encourage high school graduates to pursue a college degree or specialized training as a way to improve individuals’ quality of life and boost the economy. Lumina previously challenged the nation to reach 60% of working-age adults having a college degree, certification or credential by 2025.

At that time, the rate was 39%. It has since increased to almost 55%, a level Lumina officials say shows setting the goal and encouraging states to adopt policies and practices to achieve it have paid off.

Foundation officials have added a twist to the new target, based on what they’ve learned since setting that first goal 17 years ago. It isn’t enough, they said, to simply count degrees and certificates when some lead to jobs that don’t pay enough for working-age adults to live a good life.

Officials now want to reach 75% of U.S. working-age adults with degrees or credentials of value by 2040. “Value” is a key word. They define it as earning at least 15% more than the national average pay for a worker with only a high school diploma.

Using that metric, 43.6% of adults ages 25 to 64 who are working, looking for work or in the military hold a degree or credential that delivers economic value, according to Lumina’s A Stronger Nation report.

Courtney Brown, Lumina’s vice president of impact and planning, said the conversation really started to change as more people sought post-high school degrees and credentials.

“People began asking not just, can I get a credential, but is it actually going to lead to a better job, a higher pay?” she said Wednesday during a webinar that introduced the redesigned website to reporters. “It’s no longer just about whether somebody has a degree or credential, it’s whether they are economically better off with it.”

Brown said the 15% higher wage was chosen as a benchmark to provide a “clear, consistent way to move the conversation” from opinions on value to “outcomes and real data.”

Data show that bachelor’s and graduate degrees reliably lead to positions with higher pay, she said. But the same can’t be said of all types of certifications and credentials. Wages for those workers vary.

The Lumina website shows that nationwide, 54% of associate degree holders have incomes that meet the “value” criteria, 55% of industry certification holders do, 70% of bachelor’s degree holders meet at least the minimum income threshold, and 80% of graduate or professional degree holders hit or exceed the mark.

In Indiana, two categories are slightly higher than the national data: 55% of certification holders and 57% of associate degree holders meet the “value” criteria.

This new approach is meant to answer the value question by drilling down to which degrees and certifications fail to demonstrate clear economic benefits.

Brown said the 75% goal was chosen based on the percentage of jobs that are going to require having post-secondary education, according to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce. Those researchers say that by 2031 it will be 70%.

The 15% premium over high school graduates’ average pay was chosen as a benchmark minimum based on recommendations from labor market economists, Brown said. Many degree and credential holders earn considerably more than that percentage, she said.

Data for education attainment have been collected for the national, state and county levels, but credentials of value data aren’t available at the county level, she said.

The newly factored credentials of value amount of 43.6% provides a baseline, Brown said, so year-over-year changes and long-term trends can’t be seen yet.

Only five states and Washington, D.C., met or exceeded the initial goal of 60% of working-age adults attaining a degree or credential by 2025.

Indiana’s rate was 53.6%, placing the Hoosier State 32nd on a ranking of the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

Indiana’s percentage was slightly less than the U.S. rate of 54.8% and a bit more than Ohio’s rate of 52.5%.