Beyond Student Success.....

Something has shifted at the UIA. I'm excited to share what, and why.

If you have followed our work closely, you may have already noticed.

We have always built before we announce. We test ideas quietly, work things through in private, and only announce when we have something helpful to share.

A few years ago, we surpassed our original goal to produce 68,000 more graduates by 2025. The founding 11 campuses actually produced 164,000 additional graduates. We celebrated quietly, and our board set new, more ambitious goals aligned with where we believe higher education needs to go. Over the past year, we have been building the substance behind them.

Here is the shift: student success is only the starting point, not the endpoint.

For too long, our sector has treated graduation as the finish line. UIA included.

But students and families have been telling us for a long time that this is not enough. They want true mobility. ROI. A degree that leads somewhere. Life and career success. And while those outcomes are possible in American higher education, you and I both know they are not guaranteed. It is possible to graduate and still not get there.

We have all heard the story. A neighbor's kid. Someone's cousin.

If we want higher education to be a reliable path to life and career success, we have to change how we define and measure success.

To do that, we needed to expand our focus.

In our first decade, we measured impact in degrees and graduates. Now we are focused on post-college mobility and the long-term prosperity of our states. That shift changes what we work on and how we measure progress.

One thing I underestimated is how underdeveloped the field still is when it comes to measuring post-college mobility in ways campuses are actively using.

So we are doing what we have always done. Building with our campuses. Testing what works. Refining measures that institutions will actually adopt. Our students can't wait for the field to settle. They need us to help define it.

Don’t worry, our values have not changed. Our ambition has simply expanded, along with the kinds of innovation we are pursuing together. We remain committed to transparently sharing what we learn with the sector and giving away the tools others need to implement this work.So without further ado, here is where we are headed together.

1. More Learners, More Graduates. We will produce more graduates by expanding access and improving graduation rates. We will broaden our impact, not our exclusivity.
2. Better Outcomes and Mobility for Pell Students. We will produce more graduates from low-income backgrounds by improving graduation rates and measurably improving mobility outcomes.
3. Innovate Together. We will accelerate progress through collaboration, transparent data sharing, and holding each other accountable while holding down our costs.
4. Every Student Graduates. We aim to achieve undifferentiated outcomes regardless of student background. Our north star is a world where every student graduates.
5. Improve Value, Mobility, and Impact. We will dramatically improve graduate mobility and the lasting value and impact we create for our graduates, communities, and states.

And as always, this is not just for us.

It is for the campus we will never meet, with limited resources, serving students who deserve the same quality of learning and opportunity. Our job is to make sure the best ideas and solutions do not stay a trade secret.

There is more to share in the months ahead, and I look forward to bringing you along in this exciting new chapter for us. For now, I wanted you to know where we are headed and how we are thinking about the work.

In the meantime, I'm curious. Have you updated your goals recently? How are you and your team thinking about this moment? Hit reply. I read every one.

In partnership, 

Bridget