When she served as senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Education and later at the White House during President Barack Obama’s first term, Zakiya Smith had a hand in some of the administration’s boldest and most innovative higher education proposals.
Each one faced its series of hurdles, and some—such as the College Scorecard and the gainful employment regulations—did not quite hit the mark the way the administration had hoped.
Nevertheless, Smith still counts the administration’s efforts as victories in its push to make higher education more accountable and transparent for students and their families.
“I’m probably more optimistic about the success of both of those things because people said this is something that could never happen,” Smith says in reference to the gainful employment regulations and the College Scorecard. “And a year prior, people never imagined it could happen.”
Smith brings the same forward-looking approach to her new position as strategy director for student financial support at the Lumina Foundation, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that has been one of the most prominent players in the nation’s college completion agenda.
Smith, 28, will remain in Washington, D.C., in her new position.
“My role at Lumina is to lead the work to help cultivate good ideas for new models of student financial supports in higher education,” Smith says. “That task involves getting lots of input from people and requires working with partners throughout the policy and academic worlds.
