The Gates Foundation will focus on redesigning introductory college courses to improve passage rates and promoting stronger credit-transfer programs, among other priorities.
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The Gates Foundation has a new North Star: ensuring 10 million learners ages 18 to 34 earn “credentials of value” by 2045. That’s double the current rate of growth.
The new goal and a fresh strategic plan for how to get there were announced Wednesday. Allan Golston, president of the foundation’s U.S. program, says the shift is largely due to a finite window facing the organization. Last year, the philanthropy’s founder Bill Gates announced that it must spend roughly $200 billion before it closes permanently Dec. 31, 2045.
“If we get this right, the result will be more than higher completion rates or stronger educational outcomes,” Golston wrote in an online post about the new vision. “It will be a country where aspiration matters more than circumstance and where opportunity is within reach for far more learners.”
