1. An Optimist’s Education Agenda
Moving to Increase Access and
Success in Higher Education
Mark David Milliron
mark.milliron@gatesfoundation.org

2. Issues Ahead
“If we want things to
stay as they are, things
will have to change.”

4. Issues Ahead
• Intergenerational poverty transmission is
at its highest
• Education is the single biggest disrupter
• We’ve doubled our access to HE
• But half of all college students drop out
before earning a credential
• 68% of top quartile students from college-
going families earn a degree by 26,
compared to just 9% of first-gen students
from the bottom quartile

5. Issues Ahead
• Over the last generation we’ve moved
from 1st in educational attainment to 12th
• Overall education attainment is projected
to decrease for the first time
• Billions of dollars (federal and state) are
spent on activity that never leads to a
credential
• Worse: millions of students are trying,
but experiencing significant failures that
put their futures (and ours) at risk

6. “ . . . Dropping out is not just
quitting on yourself, it’s
quitting on your country.”
Issues Ahead

7. Issues Ahead
Malthusian doomsayers
didn’t anticipate:
•New Technology
•New Techniques
•New Behaviors

8. Conversations to Consider
Academic Catch Up
Learning Innovations and Technology
Learn and Earn
Renewal and Redesign
New Models
Credentials that Count
Learning for a Lifetime

9. Academic Catch Up
Elimination, Innovation, Acceleration

10. Learning Innovation and Technology
Curricular Resource Strategy, Big Blend,
Engaging Learning, & Learning Analytics

11. Learn & Earn Continuum
Focus: Acceleration, Contextualization, & Competency
11
Apprenticeships
w/ Credit
Cooperative
Education
(Coops)
Corporate
Colleges
w/Credit
Paid Credit-
bearing
Internships
Credit-
Bearing
Contract
Training
Credit
Mapping On-
the-Job
Training
Light Deep
Working-student
friendly employer
practices and
policies
Working-student
friendly college
practices and
policies
Credit-bearing
On–Camp us
Work Study
Unpaid Credit-
bearing
Internships
COLLEGES
EMPLOYERS
Off–Campus
Work Study
Learn & Earn
Contextual
Based
Learning

12. SUPPORTING STUDENT SUCCESS:
PREVENTING LOSS, CREATING MOMENTUM
a s y s t e m d e s i g n e d f o r s t u d e n t c o m p l e t i o n
CONNECTION ENTRY PROGRESS COMPLETION
INTEREST TO APPLICATION ENROLLMENT TO COMPLETION OF
GATEKEEPER COURSES
ENTRY INTO COURSE OF STUDY
TO 75% REQUIREMENTS COMPLETED
COMPLETE COURSE OF STUDY
TO CREDENTIAL
WITH LABOR MARKET VALUE
LossPointsStudentProgressionMomentumStrategies
Student Data System
(From Day 1 to Completion)
Student Engagement
Leadership Focused on Completion
(Faculty, Administration, Trustees)
• Do not apply to PS
• Delayed entry to PS
• Poor college counseling leads to under
enrollment, poor matching and failure
to obtain financial aid for which they
qualify
• Consistent college and career ready
standards
• Foster college-going norms supported by
peers and trusted adults
• Increase understanding of college
requirements, application and financial aid
processes/Improve information, matching
and financial aid products
• Dual enrollment/Early College High Schools
(on-ground, online options), AP credit
• Take college placement exam in high school
• Enrollment directly from high school
• Poor academic preparation
• In community colleges, 60% referred to
developmental education, only 30% ever
take subsequent college level courses
• Fail to enroll/pass Gatekeeper courses
(i.e., entry-level math and English)
• Diagnostic assessment and placement
tools
• Mandatory “intrusive” advising,
attendance, life skills courses, declared
courses of study linked career pathways
• Improvedacademic catch-up (prevention,
acceleration, supplemental instruction,
concurrent enrollment, contextualization,
and competency-baseddigital prep)
• Aggressive financial aid application
support
• Course redesign to go further, faster,
cheaper
• 75% of low-income students need to
combine work and school; work more
than 20 hours/week; schedule changes
• Part-time enrollment means slow
progress, loss of momentum
• Life happens/complex lives means
many disruptions; stop out or drop out
• Innovative programs to incent optimal
(e.g., high intensity, continuous)
attendance
• Leverage technology to make real-time
feedback, intensive advising, accelerated,
flexible, and student-centeredlearning
more available
• Intentional, accelerated, competency-
based programs of study leading to
credentials in high-demand fields like STEM
and health care
• Provide emergencyaid to deal with
unexpectedlife events
• Mandatory “intrusive” advising
• Transfer with credentials incentives
• Remove barriers to graduation (e.g.,
fees, forms)
• Learn and Earn programs that
combine credential attainment and
work experience in field of study
toward career pathway
• Limited advising leads to credit (and
debt) accumulation not matched to
degree attainment
• Leave with credits neededfor degree
except for college level math
• Transfer without credential
• Credential doesn’t garner family-
supporting wage job or isn’t
“stackable” to career that does

13. New Models

14. Credentials that Count!
STEM (health), Local Focus

15. Learning for
a Lifetime
• Critical
• Creative
• Social
• Courageous

16. “In times of drastic change, it is the
learners who inherit the future. The
learned usually find themselves
equipped to live in a world that no
longer exists.” --Eric Hoffer
Courageous Learning

17. Conversations to Consider
Academic Catch Up
Learning Innovations and Technology
Learn and Earn
Renewal and Redesign
New Models
Credentials that Count
Learning for a Lifetime

18. An Optimist’s Education Agenda
Moving to Increase Access and
Success in Higher Education
Mark David Milliron
mark.milliron@gatesfoundation.org