College completion numbers show incremental improvement from last year, according to the annual Lumina Foundation report, “A Stronger Nation.” The report, released on Monday morning, found that 40.4 percent of Americans aged 25 to 64 had either a four- or two-year degree in 2014, an increase from 40.0 percent in 2013.
Lumina is a nonprofit foundation based in Indianapolis with a focus on higher education and a goal that 60 percent of Americans will have a postsecondary degree or credential by 2025. With its $1.3 billion endowment, Lumina has funded a wide variety of college access and completion initiatives.
“We know that the demand for talent is rising, that two-thirds of all jobs being created require some form of postsecondary education,” Lumina President and CEO Jamie P. Merisotis said on Friday afternoon. “With more and more jobs requiring postsecondary skills, we have a challenge, because the challenge is that the talent needed to fill those jobs is really in short supply.”
Merisotis said that the increase in degree holders between 2013 and 2014 shows an “encouraging” upward trend.
For the first time this year, Lumina’s report also included statistics on “high-quality” postsecondary certificates. Lumina’s definition of a high-quality certificate is a credential that leads to further education or employment.
According to NORC Chicago, an independent research institution, 4.9 percent of Americans hold a high-quality certificate. “When we add this 4.9 percent to the degree attainment rate, we have the truest picture of overall postsecondary attainment across the country,” Merisotis said. With the addition of certificate data, 45.3 percent of working-age American adults hold either a degree or certificate.
Despite the addition of certificate data and the small improvement in degree completion, the numbers are not increasing fast enough to realistically meet Lumina’s goal of a national 60 percent degree and certificate completion rate by 2025, Merisotis said.
