Today’s postsecondary education system is out of sync with what our nation needs—as surveys of students, employers, and others show. 

In recent years a group of colleges started offering a mix of programs challenging the notion that college credentials must come in neat two-year or four-year packages. The institutions, which mix certificate, two-year and four-year programs, offer a novel approach in a postsecondary ecosystem that needs to adapt, write Lumina Foundation's Jamie Merisotis and Carrie Besnette Hauser of Colorado Mountain College in this op-ed.

With the now nearly yearlong pandemic causing major disruptions in education, employment, housing and more, young people who are no longer adolescents but not quite adults are struggling to find their footing.

An 18-year-old in Florida selected a college sight unseen. A 23-year-old in Texas lost his job in his dream industry. And for a 24-year-old in New Hampshire, the pandemic halted her hard-won academic and social momentum. The impact varies, person to person, place to place.

Photo: Meredith Miotke for NPR

Last week, Ayiana Davis Polen finally set foot on the campus of Spelman College—a historically Black liberal arts school for women in Atlanta. She's a freshman there but had started her college experience last fall taking classes from her bedroom in Puerto Rico.

Spelman, like many colleges across the United States, is beefing up its in-person offerings for the spring semester. For Davis Polen, that means her first taste of the college experience she has always envisioned.