Lumina Foundation President Jamie Merisotis travels the country urging local, state and federal government officials and higher education leaders to rethink higher education and determine what steps will create the work force the nation requires in the future to remain competitive.
When the Lumina Foundation for Education opened in the summer of 2000, it had lots of ideas and, for a brand new foundation, loads of cash — $770 million. Its agenda for the future was clear and fuzzy, say those familiar with its launch. Unsure about how best to improve higher education, it spent years funding exploratory projects.
Lumina approaches its 10th anniversary this month with a focused higher education funding mission targeting efforts aimed at expanding access and success beyond high school, “particularly among adults, first-generation college-going students, low-income students and students of color.” It is the only foundation in the nation touting this as its central mission.
In 2009, the last full calendar year for which information was available, Lumina put more than $55 million into higher education projects in this zone. That was several million dollars higher than its 2008 funding, despite the sour economy and slump in the value of its investment portfolio.
By pouring millions of dollars into new ideas and ad campaigns aimed at expanding access and success for these target groups, Lumina hopes enough educators and policymakers will buy into its campaign to boost the percentage of Americans with “high-quality degrees and credentials” by 20 percent by 2025 from what it says is the “longstanding rate” of 39 percent. Lumina calls its 2025 campaign “the Big Goal.”
Lumina’s financial size (it has grown to more than $1 billion) as one of the 30 largest foundations in the nation and its aggressive push of its 2025 program have made the Indianapolis-based foundation the buzz of the higher education community. Still, it’s a smaller being among the cluster of the nation’s bigger and much older foundations, and some marvel that this midget among giants is moving like an 800-pound gorilla.
“Right now they are being disproportionately influential,” says Dr. Michael Lomax, president and chief executive of the UNCF, crediting Lumina for having a much larger impact on the debate about how to improve higher education than its financial size would suggest it could. The Gates Foundation, for example, can afford to put $100 million into one project, he notes, nearly double the total annual payout of Lumina.
