Comments on AHEAD

by | Apr 9, 2026 | Press Release

Re: Comments on Accountability in Higher Education and Access Through Demand-Driven Workforce Pell: Pell Grant Exclusion Relating to Other Grant Aid; and Workforce Pell Grants

 Dear Under Secretary Nicholas Kent,

 The Presidents Forum appreciates the Department’s engagement through these directed questions and the opportunity to contribute to the development of Workforce Pell. As a nonprofit organization composed of innovative college and university leaders, we are committed to advancing student-centered policies that expand access and improve outcomes for working learners and other nontraditional students.  

We recognize that successful implementation will be critical to realizing the full potential of Workforce Pell. As the Department finalizes its approach, we encourage a framework that is clear, consistent, and practical for institutions to implement, and that supports expanded access and strong outcomes for students.

Where relevant, we also encourage alignment with existing regulatory approaches to promote consistency and avoid unnecessary complexity for institutions serving students across state lines, including in how student location is determined.

Directed Questions

Written Arrangements To Provide Educational Programs (§ 668.5(c))

The Presidents Forum appreciates the Department’s recognition of the role partnerships can play in strengthening eligible workforce programs. High-quality workforce programs are closely aligned with employer and industry needs, and that alignment often depends on collaboration with external partners who bring specialized expertise, training environments, and real-world application into the educational experience.

In many cases, effective workforce programs integrate instruction delivered in partnership with employers or other industry-aligned organizations. These partnerships help ensure programs remain responsive to labor market demand and that students acquire skills that translate into employment and earnings outcomes. The depth of these partnerships is often central to program quality and student success.

The proposed 25 percent limitation may unintentionally constrain the development of high-quality workforce programs by limiting institutions’ ability to fully leverage these partnerships. In some cases, institutions may be required to replicate training components that are more effectively delivered in collaboration with industry, reducing program effectiveness and increasing costs without clear benefit to students.

While we recognize the Department’s interest in ensuring appropriate oversight, we believe this can be achieved while allowing greater flexibility. The proposal is more restrictive than the framework that has historically governed written arrangements in Title IV programs, and we encourage the Department to consider a similarly flexible approach here.

Accordingly, we recommend that the Department allow written arrangements that exceed 25 percent where appropriate institutional control and oversight are maintained. This flexibility will better support innovative, employer-aligned programs that deliver strong outcomes for students.

Ineligibility Due to Grant or Scholarship Assistance (§ 690.5)

This provision effectively shifts the Pell Grant from a first-dollar to a last-dollar benefit in certain circumstances. For decades, Pell has served as the foundational source of financial aid for low-income students, with state, employer, institutional, and philanthropic support layered on top. Many of these aid programs have been designed with the expectation that Pell funding will be applied first in a student’s financial aid package.

Altering this structure, even in limited situations, may have unintended consequences for students. State and local aid programs, employer tuition benefits, and private scholarships may not be structured to adjust seamlessly to a last-dollar Pell model. As a result, students may face reduced total aid or increased complexity in calculating or determining financing for their education, particularly for working learners who rely on multiple sources of support.

Policy should encourage employer investment in education. This change may affect employer participation in workforce education programs. If employer-provided assistance reduces or eliminates Pell eligibility, it may create disincentives for employers to invest in their employees’ education or for students to utilize available employer benefits, which could undermine the goal of expanding access to demand-driven workforce programs.

The proposed requirement to recalculate aid and potentially return Pell funds when additional non-Federal assistance is identified and exceeds the student’s cost of attendance may further increase complexity and uncertainty for both students and institutions. Changes in financial aid eligibility throughout an award year may be difficult for students to navigate and could introduce administrative challenges for institutions attempting to manage multiple funding sources in real time and provide students with as much aid as possible.

Given these considerations, we encourage the Department to carefully assess the broader impacts of this provision on students and existing aid ecosystems. Any additional reporting, oversight, or enforcement mechanisms should be designed to minimize disruption to these systems, reduce unnecessary administrative burden, and avoid discouraging employer, state, or philanthropic investment in student success.

Components Determined by Governors (§ 690.93)

The Presidents Forum supports the Department’s goal of ensuring that eligible workforce programs are aligned with labor market demand.

As the Department implements this requirement, it will be important that the process for state approval is clear, efficient, and capable of operating at the scale required to meet workforce needs. Workforce demand is often regional or national in nature, particularly in high-demand sectors where employers operate across state lines and where remote work is increasingly common. Many workforce programs are designed to prepare students for employment opportunities that extend beyond a single state.

Given these realities, the structure and execution of the approval process will be critical. If the process is overly complex or time-intensive, it may limit institutions’ ability to expand access to high-quality programs through distance education in a timely manner. This could reduce opportunities for students, particularly working learners, who depend on flexible access to programs aligned with in-demand careers.

We encourage the Department to prioritize the development of a streamlined and scalable approach for state approval that enables coordination across multiple states where appropriate. A clear and efficient framework will better support the expansion of high-quality workforce programs while maintaining alignment with labor market needs and preserving appropriate state involvement.

 

Value-Added Earnings: Interim Value-Added Earnings Metric (§ 690.95(a))

The Presidents Forum encourages the Department to prioritize clarity, stability, and effective implementation as it develops the value-added earnings framework for eligible workforce programs.

As the Department considers whether to introduce interim measures or additional layers of accountability, it is important to avoid creating a system that is overly complex or difficult for institutions to implement. Workforce Pell has the potential to expand access to high-quality, demand-driven programs, but that potential depends on a regulatory framework that institutions can navigate efficiently and consistently.

An overly complex or rapidly evolving accountability structure may create uncertainty for institutions, limit their willingness to develop new programs, and ultimately reduce the availability of opportunities for students. This is particularly important for programs designed to serve working learners, where flexibility, speed to market, and alignment with employer needs are critical.

We encourage the Department to focus on developing a clear and sustainable long-term approach to measuring student outcomes, rather than introducing additional interim requirements that may complicate implementation. A streamlined and well-understood framework will better support institutional participation, program innovation, and improved outcomes for students.

 

Value-Added Earnings: Exclusion of Certain Students in the Completer Cohort (§ 690.95(a))

The Presidents Forum supports the Department’s commitment to developing a value-added earnings metric that meaningfully reflects program outcomes while maintaining fairness across diverse student populations. As the Department considers the composition of the completer cohort, we believe it is both appropriate and necessary to exclude students who are actively enrolled in postsecondary education at the time earnings are measured.

This consideration is particularly important for nontraditional students, including working adults and military-connected learners, who often pursue education through incremental, stackable pathways. Workforce Pell programs are designed not only to support immediate employment outcomes, but also to enable continued educational progression through credentials that are transferable and build toward higher levels of degree attainment. As a result, many students will intentionally re-enroll in subsequent programs shortly after completion as part of a planned pathway to career advancement.

For these students, short-term earnings may not accurately reflect the value of the initial program, as they may be balancing employment with continued education or temporarily deferring full labor market participation to complete additional credentials. Including actively enrolled students in the value-added earnings calculation could therefore understate program effectiveness, particularly for programs intentionally designed to support upward mobility through continued learning.

Excluding currently enrolled students is also consistent with the Department’s longstanding approach in other accountability frameworks, including the 2023 Gainful Employment regulations and earnings metrics reported through the College Scorecard. Maintaining this consistency will support clearer interpretation of outcomes and provide a more accurate comparison across programs and institutions.

We recognize the Department’s concern that exclusions may introduce unintended incentives. However, in this context, the risk of distortion is greater if actively enrolled students are included, as doing so may discourage institutions from designing programs that promote continued education and credential progression. Such an outcome would run counter to the goals of Workforce Pell, which emphasizes alignment with workforce needs while supporting long-term economic mobility.

From an administrative perspective, excluding students who are actively enrolled should not create a significantly additional burden. The Department already has access to enrollment data through its existing systems, and applying a consistent exclusion across accountability measures may reduce complexity for institutions by aligning expectations across frameworks.

Accordingly, we recommend that the Department exclude students who are actively enrolled in postsecondary education at the time earnings are measured from the value-added earnings cohort. This approach will better reflect the realities of nontraditional student pathways, support the design of stackable and transferable workforce programs, and ensure that accountability metrics accurately capture both immediate and long-term value for students.

Value-Added Earnings: Process for Combining Multiple Cohorts (§ 690.95(h))

The Presidents Forum recognizes the Department’s goal of ensuring that value-added earnings metrics can be calculated for a broad set of programs, including those with smaller enrollment levels, by combining multiple cohorts to meet minimum sample size thresholds. We support the objective of increasing transparency and consistency in accountability measures while reducing the need for data suppression.

At the same time, as the Department considers the appropriate structure for cohort aggregation, it is important to ensure that the resulting metric remains timely, accurate, and reflective of current program outcomes, particularly for workforce programs that primarily serve nontraditional students, including working adults and military-affiliated learners.

These student populations often engage in education through flexible, iterative pathways that are responsive to changing workforce demands. Programs designed for working learners are frequently updated to reflect employer needs, incorporate new technologies, or align with evolving industry standards. Additionally, many Workforce Pell-eligible programs are intentionally structured as stackable and transferable credentials that encourage re-enrollment and continued skill development over time.

In this context, aggregating earnings outcomes across multiple years may unintentionally blend results from materially different program structures, labor market conditions, and student experiences. Older cohorts may reflect prior versions of a program or different economic environments, which could limit the ability of the metric to accurately capture the value of current program offerings. This may be particularly pronounced for programs serving military-connected students, where mobility, deployment cycles, and transition periods can also influence both enrollment patterns and early earnings outcomes.

We also note that nontraditional students often experience more gradual earnings progression as they balance employment, education, and other responsibilities. As a result, the timing of earnings measurement and the cohorts included can significantly influence how program value is reflected in accountability metrics.

While cohort aggregation can improve statistical reliability, extending the aggregation window too far may reduce the responsiveness of the metric and create misalignment with the pace at which workforce programs evolve. This could, in turn, discourage innovation or delay program improvements if institutions perceive that outcomes will not be reflected in accountability measures for several years.

From an administrative perspective, a clearly defined and limited aggregation approach can help balance the need for sufficient sample size with the importance of maintaining a metric that is understandable and actionable for institutions, students, and policymakers.

Accordingly, we recommend that the Department maintain a reasonable and limited cohort aggregation window of no more than the three most recent award years, avoiding the inclusion of older cohorts that may not reflect current program design or labor market conditions. This approach will support the calculation of stable earnings metrics while preserving their relevance for workforce programs serving nontraditional learners.

We further encourage the Department to consider safeguards or contextual indicators where programs have undergone significant changes, to ensure that accountability measures accurately reflect current performance. A balanced approach to cohort aggregation will better support transparency, program innovation, and the continued development of high-quality, workforce-aligned educational opportunities for working adults and military-affiliated students.

Value-Added Earnings: Programs Serving Out-Of-State Students (§ 690.95(k))

As the Department finalizes its approach to adjusting earnings for geographic differences, it is important that the methodology does not disadvantage programs that serve students across state lines, particularly through distance education.

Many workforce programs are designed to reach students beyond a single state, including working learners who rely on online and hybrid models to access education. These programs play a critical role in expanding access to training aligned with in-demand careers. An approach that applies different earnings adjustments based on the geographic distribution of students may unintentionally penalize these models, even when they produce strong outcomes.

Programs serving a broader, multi-state population should not be evaluated under a framework that places them at a disadvantage relative to programs serving primarily in-state students. Differences in methodology should not result in unequal treatment based on delivery model or student geography.

We encourage the Department to adopt an approach that ensures consistent and equitable evaluation of programs, regardless of whether they serve students locally or across state lines. Maintaining neutrality across delivery models will be important to preserving access, innovation, and student opportunity within Workforce Pell.

 

Sincerely,

Wesley Smith

Executive Director

Presidents Forum

What Does a Learner-First Workforce Model Look Like in Practice?

What Does a Learner-First Workforce Model Look Like in Practice?

by | Apr 8, 2026 | Innovation, Outcomes and Accountability, Video, Working Learners

What Does a Learner-First Workforce Model Look Like in Practice?

What does a “learner-first workforce model” actually mean in practice?

A learner-first workforce model starts with who today’s students are and designs education around their realities, not institutional convenience.

At Purdue Global, this means recognizing that:

  • Over 60% of students are age 30+
  • 78% have family responsibilities
  • Most are working while enrolled

Instead of treating these as constraints, the model treats them as design inputs.

Example:

Purdue Global awarded over 1 million prior learning credits in 2024–2025, translating real-world experience into academic progress.

Why it matters:

This approach aligns directly with the Presidents Forum mission to “reinvent higher education around learner success” and expand opportunity for nontraditional students.

How are programs designed to align with workforce needs?

Programs are built starting from labor market demand, not academic tradition.

At Purdue Global, program design integrates three inputs:

  1. Employer partnerships (real-time workforce needs)
  2. Faculty practitioners (active in their industries)
  3. Strategic foresight teams (future skill demand)

Example:

In advanced manufacturing, Purdue Global partnered with an industry employer to co-design curriculum tailored to specific workforce gaps, then validated that design directly with the employer before launch .

Why it matters:

This reflects a broader Presidents Forum priority: connecting education directly to opportunity and employer demand through collaborative innovation.

What role do employer partnerships play in shaping programs?

Employer partnerships are not advisory. They are co-design partners.

They influence:

  • Curriculum structure
  • Skill prioritization
  • Credential pathways
  • Delivery formats

Example:

Employer input shaped a manufacturing pathway that includes:

  • A 2-credit entry course
  • A flexible 3-course micro-credential
  • Direct pathways into bachelor’s degrees

Why it matters:

This ensures programs are “true, relevant, and legitimate” in the labor market, reducing the gap between education and employment.

How do stackable credentials improve student outcomes?

Stackable credentials turn education into incremental, career-relevant progress rather than a single high-stakes degree.

At Purdue Global:

  • Micro-credentials are embedded inside degrees
  • Each step delivers immediate labor market value
  • Students can stop and start without losing progress

Example pathway:

  1. Introductory course → entry into field
  2. Micro-credential → targeted skill building
  3. Bachelor’s degree → long-term advancement

Even partial completion delivers value.

Why it matters:

This aligns with the Presidents Forum’s focus on “credentials at scale” and stackable pathways that connect learners to opportunity faster.

How are programs designed specifically for working adults?

Programs are designed to remove friction, not add it.

Key design principles include:

1. Predictable learning experience

Every course follows the same structure, so students don’t waste time relearning systems.

2. Continuous start dates

Students don’t wait for semesters. They start when ready.

3. Policies built for real life

Flexible options account for:

  • Work disruptions
  • Family responsibilities
  • Military deployment

4. 24/7 support ecosystem

Includes advisors, coaches, and AI-enabled assistance.

Example:

Military learners can continue coursework during deployment with faculty trained to support their context.

Why it matters:

This reflects a core Presidents Forum principle: education should adapt to students, not the other way around.

What is the role of innovation leadership in driving these models?

Innovation is not a department. It is a cross-functional capability.

The “innovation catalyst” role at Purdue Global:

  • Connects academic teams, employers, and system partners
  • Challenges existing models
  • Identifies new delivery and credential approaches

Example:

Innovation leadership enables rapid program iteration based on industry shifts (e.g., technology changes in nursing or accounting).

Why it matters:

This mirrors how Presidents Forum institutions operate collectively, using shared insight and collaboration to drive system-level change beyond any single institution.

What does this model signal about the future of higher education?

The learner-first workforce model signals a shift from:

  • Degrees as endpoints → degrees as pathways
  • Time-based learning → skills-based progression
  • Institutional control → student-centered design

Presidents Forum institutions are leading this shift by:

  • Serving working adults, military learners, and underserved populations
  • Embedding skills and workforce alignment into program design
  • Partnering across institutions and industries to scale innovation

Bottom line:

Higher education’s future belongs to institutions that design for real lives, real jobs, and real outcomes.

Transcript:

00;00;05;14 – 00;00;29;03 Shalise Obray Welcome to the President’s Forum podcast. As part of our April Focus on the Learner First workforce. We’re highlighting how member institutions are designing programs that connect directly to opportunity. Today, I’m joined by Marcelle Lawrence, who serves as innovation catalyst at Purdue Global, an institution that has been deeply intentional about aligning programs to high demand industries while supporting working learners.

00;00;29;08 – 00;00;45;07 Shalise Obray Marcelle, thank you for being here. We’re excited to dig into how you’re building these pathways. Let’s start at a high level. When you think about the learner first workforce model, what does that mean at Purdue Global and how does that shape the way you design programs.

00;00;45;10 – 00;01;10;29 Maricel Lawrence Next slide. Thank you so much for having me today. I would like to start by sharing that Purdue Global is Purdue’s online university for working adults. We serve as a vital component of the Purdue University system, leveraging 150 year legacy of excellence to make it an accessible tool, a diverse audience, and to support Purdue’s main brand mission.

00;01;11;01 – 00;01;47;23 Maricel Lawrence So for us, learner first means recognizing that over 60% of our students are over age 30 and 78% have family responsibilities. We value the life and work experience they bring. We are exceptionally good at recognizing this experience through prior learning. So for example, in 2024, 2025, we approved more than 1 million credits through this process. So with that in mind, our program design starts with the workforce needs of today.

00;01;47;26 – 00;02;17;04 Maricel Lawrence We build offerings with a skills first mindset that lead to degrees that employers respect in what we need immediate industry demands. Our strategic foresight team that was launched in 2021 also evaluates possible future needs. This allows us to build a future oriented curriculum that ensures our learners are not just prepared for the next job, but for the long term evolution of their industries.

00;02;17;06 – 00;02;31;18 Shalise Obray That’s really wise. I did want to ask you an innovation catalyst is a really unique title and not something we hear all of the time. How does that how does that work in practice? What does that mean to you to to have that title?

00;02;31;25 – 00;03;01;00 Maricel Lawrence Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that question. So, what my role does is works across the institution. And so we’re talking about new program development today. And that’s one of the areas that I have been supporting in. And what that means is being able to collaborate with the academic teams, connect with industry partnerships, connect with other stakeholders in the system to be able to support the needs of our students.

00;03;01;01 – 00;03;15;26 Maricel Lawrence And my role is to be able to say, it’s great that we’re doing the work that we’re doing this way. Is there any other models? Is there anything else that we can do to be able to innovate and and support the industry and our students as the world keeps evolving?

00;03;15;28 – 00;03;36;13 Shalise Obray I love that that’s a great that’s a great title and a great, portfolio to have. One of the things Purdue Global does particularly well is aligning programs to high demand industries. Can you walk us through how you identify those needs and how employer partnerships are shaping your program design and delivery?

00;03;36;15 – 00;04;09;08 Maricel Lawrence Yeah. So, Purdue Global, the new program development process can start in a variety of ways. So we rely on school advisory boards for new offering ideas. And I mentioned our strategic foresight team or year to year and emerging trends with academic teams. Now we also leverage our full time and adjunct instructors with deep field expertise. They are active in their fields, understanding real time evolutions.

00;04;09;10 – 00;04;40;13 Maricel Lawrence Think about the shift in technology, in nursing, or how, the current state of accounting is. And so they bring those needs directly to our teams to think about in mapping and evaluate. We also work closely with Purdue online. We collaborated as a system to offer content. This involves deep research with our joint R&D team to identify and explore ideas before bringing them to the academic teams to build.

00;04;40;15 – 00;05;17;13 Maricel Lawrence And, you know, we work directly with employers to support their specific needs. There is an example that we have, in advanced manufacturing sector, where we have partnered with a major industry leader to figure it out exactly how to support their unique workforce requirements through customized curriculum. And I’m happy to share more about that experience once we receive those ideas and we explore them, then we confirm back with industry to build a personal education that is true, relevant and legitimate.

00;05;17;16 – 00;05;30;15 Shalise Obray You’ve also taken a strong approach to stackable credentials. Can you share an example of how learners can start with a short term credential and build toward a degree, while staying connected to workforce outcomes along the way?

00;05;30;18 – 00;05;55;13 Maricel Lawrence Yeah, that’s a that’s a great question. So I would say there are several industry is bad. Because this has worked really, really well. I’ll share that at Purdue Global. We build micro-credentials that are typically embedded within a degree. And this ensures that every step a student take has immediate market value. Now, we don’t usually do this in a vacuum.

00;05;55;13 – 00;06;26;26 Maricel Lawrence Right. So we work hand in hand with employers to figure it out. The best way for, sort of the best pathway for a specific workforce. And so I mentioned the manufacturing, experience earlier in. So I’ll share that example in more detail and how we have done that step ability approach. So with that, that partner we design two credit introductory course to give us students fast, accessible entry point into the field.

00;06;26;28 – 00;06;51;10 Maricel Lawrence Then we build a three course micro credential that students can navigate in any order based on their immediate job needs. So students will start in the two credit courses to understand the foundations of manufacturing. And then they move through the micro credential in any order that makes the most sense for them. Now, if they complete the micro credential, that’s a win.

00;06;51;13 – 00;07;16;18 Maricel Lawrence But even if they don’t finish the whole sequence, they have gained the specific content that they need for that moment in their career. And now for those ready to move farther, we have a direct path into a bachelor’s in applied manufacturing. Or if they want to go into management, we say they can go into the bachelor’s in business administration and other types of of degrees.

00;07;16;20 – 00;07;42;13 Maricel Lawrence So there, you know, when it comes to industry partnerships, I would say manufacturing is one of those examples that we have seen a lot of a lot of value in in the conversation about stack ability in general as an Indiana based institution. We work very closely with Ivy Tech community colleges to create a seamless, strong pathway from an associate’s degree to a bachelor’s degree.

00;07;42;16 – 00;08;07;21 Maricel Lawrence And so we also provide scholarships for Ivy tech graduates to ensure that they have the support to to keep moving. And so this stackable approach turns education into a series of stable stepping stones that provide real opportunities for more and allows our students to build this experience that fits forward for their lives.

00;08;07;23 – 00;08;33;12 Shalise Obray That’s really smart design. Allowing students to to to have that value at every step of the process. We know that many, if not all of your students are balancing jobs and families, and other life things with their education. What are some of the design decisions that you’ve made? To make sure that these programs are working for working learners.

00;08;33;15 – 00;09;05;27 Maricel Lawrence Yeah. Thank you so much for that question. From our very origins, Purdue Global has been, built specifically for the busy adult learner. We, of course, offer online classes, and we have engineering ecosystem risk critical components. But we consider the minimum standard for adult learner success. One of our most impactful decisions or design decisions in our, work is the standardized course design.

00;09;05;29 – 00;09;38;07 Maricel Lawrence Every course follows the same structure so that students don’t have to waste time learning where content is located every time they start a new term, they can dive straight into their learning because they know where the content is located in our platform, and we don’t make the students wait months for a traditional semester to begin with. Classes starting constantly or learners can begin their program when they are ready.

00;09;38;09 – 00;10;08;13 Maricel Lawrence And I would say another component that I think is critical is that our policies are designed for life’s interruptions. Life happens. Right. And offering list of options when they are most needed is is critical. I always speak about, the unique challenges of our military students. For example, when a student is deployed, they need a university that understands that experience.

00;10;08;16 – 00;10;43;08 Maricel Lawrence Our faculty are specifically trained to work with the students, ensuring their education stays on track regardless of where they are stationed. And, we also provide a series of types of support for our learners, including academic advisors and coaches. And of course, now we’re leveraging AI and technology to ensure we are available 24 over seven media students exactly when they have a question, right, whether it is a noon or a two in the morning.

00;10;43;11 – 00;11;16;25 Maricel Lawrence We need to be there and support them. So we are we we are very critical about how we support different types of learners and the type of needs. So they have, I think about the needs of one adult learner with prior college experience, are vastly different from someone starting fresh. So we develop targeted interventions to meet each learner where they are ensuring all of the different type of audiences have the specific resources they need to reach their goals.

00;11;16;28 – 00;11;38;05 Shalise Obray Well, Marcel, what stands out here is the intentionality in designing programs that don’t just deliver content, but are worked around how learners live and how they need to learn and work. So thank you so much for sharing the work you’re doing. And, for, for talking with us today.

00;11;38;07 – 00;11;40;08 Maricel Lawrence Absolutely. In this match for the opportunity.

00;11;40;10 – 00;11;49;14 Shalise Obray And thank you to everyone listening. These are the kinds of ideas and approaches that are shaping what a learner first workforce can look like. We’ll continue the conversation soon.

April Update

April Update

by | Apr 3, 2026 | Innovation, Video, Working Learners

April Update

Why it matters

Today’s students are balancing work, family, and career change. Higher education and public policy need to reflect that reality.

What we’ve been doing

Over the past month, Presidents Forum members have continued advancing work across innovation, workforce alignment, and student-centered system design.

In Washington

Last week, Forum leadership met with the Department of Education and Congress to reinforce a clear message: if we are serious about student success, policy must create space for innovation rather than constrain it.

What’s next

In April, we’re building on that momentum with a focus on the learner-first workforce: how learning connects more directly to opportunity, and how institutions, employers, and policy can align around that goal.

Bottom line

The opportunity ahead is not just to respond to change, but to shape a better system for learners. That is the work we will keep pushing forward in the months ahead.

Rethinking Tuition Assistance

Rethinking Tuition Assistance

by | Mar 20, 2026 | Policy, Working Learners

Rethinking Tuition Assistance

In contemporary debates on American defense manpower and national competitiveness, military voluntary education occupies an odd intellectual position. It is normatively celebrated as a mechanism for self-improvement and transition, and it is formally justified in statute as a tool for recruiting, retention, and readiness, yet the evaluative apparatus around it remains remarkably thin. Most analyses track enrollment, course completion, and degree attainment, occasionally extending to nearterm reenlistment effects, but they seldom grapple with the deeper question of how these programs structure the flow of human capital into the nation’s critical infrastructure workforce. Against this backdrop, the Unicorn manuscript advances a more ambitious claim: that voluntary education can be reconceived as a national institute of workforce formation if we are willing to treat individual desire as a measurable construct and link it systematically to both educational capacity and industrial demand.

The conceptual pivot in Unicorn is to move from a supplyside view of education (what programs exist, how many people use them) to a demandside view anchored in person–environment fit theory. Holland’s vocational choice framework and subsequent person–environment fit literature posit that individuals seek environments where they can express their interests and values, and that congruence between vocational personality and work setting predicts satisfaction, performance, and reduced turnover intentions. Unicorn operationalizes this insight by specifying a “Desire universe” in which each servicemember is represented by a structured object comprising a multitude of dimensions. Rather than treating desire as a vague preference, the manuscript treats it as a high-dimensional data object that can be measured, aggregated, and analyzed at scale.

Once desire is formalized in this way, new analytic possibilities emerge. At the micro level, desire objects can be matched to families of occupations across the critical infrastructure landscape, from advanced and additive manufacturing to cyber defense, energy systems, logistics, and data-intensive roles. At the meso level, aggregating these objects reveals latent patterns: clusters of servicemembers whose interest–value–skill profiles align with particular sectors, regional concentrations of underdeveloped potential, or systematic mismatches between what individuals want and what existing education pathways make visible. At the macro level, these desire distributions can be compared against labor market projections in the defense industrial base, semiconductor ecosystems, and broader national security-relevant industries, where workforce shortages in the millions are now regularly cited in both government strategies and industry analyses.

However, Desire is only one of three universes in the Unicorn architecture. The second, Capacity, reframes the higher education enterprise as a programmable layer of human capital production. Here, the manuscript argues for a comprehensive mapping of programs, particularly at regional research universities (R2s), community colleges, and technical institutes, tagged not only by discipline and credential level but by their relevance to critical infrastructure workforce categories. This capacity map makes it possible to ask analytically precise questions: Where do existing offerings already intersect with observed desire clusters for cyber or energy roles? Where are there pockets of strong desire but insufficient capacity, suggesting a need for new cohorts, microcredentials, or industry embedded pathways? And where is capacity abundant but loosely coupled to both desire and demonstrable workforce demand, raising questions of allocative efficiency?

The third universe, Connection, is where Unicorn’s analytic exposition pushes most directly into institutional design. Building on the first two universes, Connection is described as an interface between individuals, educational institutions, and the critical infrastructure workforce at large. It encompasses the matching algorithms and governance structures that translate desire and capacity into concrete trajectories: from initial counseling and course selection through completion, credential stacking, and placement into roles recognized across agencies and industries alike in the critical infrastructure taxonomies. In theoretical terms, this layer operationalizes person–environment fit not just within an abstract “job” but within a national system of essential work, where resilience of energy grids, defense supply chains, cyber systems, and logistics networks are now treated in strategic documents as a core security concern.

What makes Unicorn particularly provocative for scholars of military sociology, higher education, and labor economics is its insistence that voluntary education outcomes be evaluated against this connection frame rather than against proximal educational metrics alone. Existing empirical work on tuition assistance and related programs offers mixed evidence on retention, in part because participation has unfolded in an environment where neither desires nor workforce linkages were systematically specified. By contrast, Unicorn sketches a counterfactual regime in which education benefits are intentionally used to steer desire rich populations into undersupplied critical infrastructure roles, and in which success is measured by changes in reenlistment among targeted skill communities, promotion and readiness indicators, and postservice earnings in strategically salient sectors. This is not simply a call for better metrics but for a different dependent variable: from “did the member complete a degree?” to “did the system convert desire plus capacity into durable contributions to the critical infrastructure workforce?”.

The manuscript thus offers, in condensed form, a three universe theory of how desire, educational capacity, and economic structure might be jointly modeled in the context of U.S. defense and national security. For academic readers, it opens several lines of inquiry. One could test the stability and predictive validity of the proposed Desire construct across cohorts and services. One could examine how different capacity configurations say, varying densities of R2 institutions with strong engineering programs, alter the efficiency with which desire is translated into critical infrastructure employment. And one could interrogate the normative and distributive implications of using a military education apparatus as a national workforce instrument, particularly in light of broader debates about reindustrialization, regional inequality, and the civilian–military boundary.

Unicorn does not claim to resolve these questions within its own covers. Instead, it offers a deliberately constructed architecture, Desire, Capacity, Connection, as a researchable object, and as an invitation. If desire is indeed measurable, and if voluntary education can be reconceived as a critical infrastructure institute rather than a peripheral benefit, then scholars and practitioners alike face a different set of design problems than those that have dominated the TA literature (such as it is) to date. The full text elaborates this architecture, populates it with empirical estimates and sectoral projections, and sketches legislative and administrative pathways for implementation. The argument, in short, is that there is a unicorn here, not in the sense of an impossible creature, but in the sense of a rare institutional configuration hiding in plain sight, waiting to be specified, measured, and built.

When Tuition Assistance Stalled, SNHU Stepped In

When Tuition Assistance Stalled, SNHU Stepped In

by | Mar 16, 2026 | Uncategorized, Underserved Communities

When the federal government shut down in fall 2025, the disruption reached military students quickly. Tuition Assistance payments paused, leaving many service members unsure whether they could stay enrolled in their classes.

Southern New Hampshire University chose not to wait for the system. The university provided more than $1.3 million in scholarships so military students affected by the shutdown could continue their coursework without interruption.

For service members balancing deployments, training schedules, and family responsibilities, even a short funding gap can derail progress toward a degree. SNHU’s response ensured those students could keep moving forward.

A Model Designed for Military Learners

The decision reflects a broader strategy. SNHU has spent years building programs designed for working adults and military students whose lives rarely fit a traditional academic calendar.

Flexible online courses allow service members to continue their education through moves, deployments, and unpredictable schedules. That approach has helped the university grow into one of the largest nonprofit providers of higher education in the country, serving more than 200,000 learners.

Policy and Research on Military Education

SNHU has also been active in shaping policy discussions around military education. The university supported the bipartisan Military Learning for Credit Act, legislation aimed at helping service members translate military training and experience into college credit.

In November 2025, SNHU’s Center for Higher Education Policy and Practice released a report with the Today’s Student Coalition examining barriers military-connected learners face in higher education. The report calls for improvements in Tuition Assistance funding, stronger recognition of prior learning, and adjustments to GI Bill housing support.

Commitment in Practice

Higher education institutions often speak about supporting military students. Moments like the 2025 shutdown reveal what that commitment looks like in practice.

SNHU’s response was not a sweeping reform or a policy announcement. It was a practical decision that kept hundreds of service members enrolled and progressing toward their degrees.

For the students involved, the outcome was simple but significant: their education continued.