The state is identifying research that can help strengthen postsecondary education and advance the state’s goal of having 60% of working-age adults earn a postsecondary credential or skills certificate by 2030. The Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential’s (MiLEAP) Office of Higher Education (OHE) published 10 research priorities focused on the factors that shape access, success, and economic mobility.
OHE Research Priorities:
-
- Whether Michigan’s aid programs are structured to reach the students who need them most, and what remains unaffordable after tuition is covered.
- Why eligible Michiganders do not enroll and what can bring back the roughly one million adults who left college without a credential.
- How developmental education reform, guided pathways, and credit for prior learning affect whether students complete their programs and whether required courses are available when students need them.
- What happens in classrooms and advising offices, including how colleges are using artificial intelligence in instruction and student services.
- How housing, food, childcare, transportation and mental health shape whether students can turn access to tuition into a completed credential.
- Whether Michigan’s transfer infrastructure is delivering for students and how the state can build greater coherence across autonomous institutions.
- Who has access to internships, apprenticeships and work-based learning opportunities and who faces barriers to participating.
- Whether Michigan is producing the credentials its economy needs and whether graduates remain in the state.
- How colleges are adapting to demographic changes, federal policy shifts, and AI-driven changes in the workforce.
- Whether Michigan is on track to reach Sixty by 30 and whether the credentials counted toward that goal are delivering meaningful economic value.
Sixty by 30 Progress:
-
- Since 2023, more than $740 million in Michigan Achievement Scholarships has supported over 110,000 students.
- Michigan Reconnect has helped 94,000 adult learners return to education and pursue new career pathways.
