Last week, Joe Garcia, chancellor of the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), joined Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, and Dr. Courtney Brown and Dominique Raymond from the Lumina Foundation for a panel discussion on credential attainment. Colorado continues to outpace the country in credential attainment, with 65% of adults ages 25 to 64 completing education beyond high school, according to Lumina’s Stronger Nation report. Nationally, credential attainment increased to 54.3% in 2022, up from 38.1% in 2009. 

Over the 30-minute conversation, Chancellor Garcia and Mitchell discuss strategies to increase attainment rates, especially among adult learners; common barriers to completion; and the ongoing priority to close equity gaps among students of color. 

CCCS is part of the Lumina Foundation’s REACH Collaborative, an initiative that aims to increase credential completion rates among adult students of color. Lumina awarded the CCCS Foundation a $1 million grant to test out and scale solutions at eight CCCS colleges.    

Watch the panel discussion below.