Kristin Hultquist

CEO & FOUNDING PARTNER

Kristin D. Hultquist is a nationally-renowned expert in higher education policy and strategy development at the state and federal levels. She founded HCM because she believes in the power of policy solutions that integrate effective storytelling, rigorous analysis, sharp insights and politically sensitive strategy.

Kristin has built and continues to lead HCM’s postsecondary practice, which enjoys a deep record of partnering with clients to advance and sustain evidence-based policy changes. This record includes helping create and manage Lumina Foundation’s Strategy Labs, supporting attainment goal setting in 44 states, advising strategic finance change in fifteen states, and guiding strategic plan development in every region of the country. Kristin is routinely sought out by state, higher education and nonprofit leaders when they want to examine and refine their student-centered policies and practices. She has testified as an invited witness to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives during the 114th,115th and 116th Congresses on federal financial aid reforms recommended by two initiatives she directed—the American Dream 2.0 coalition and the Doing Better for More Students technical report.

Kristin’s belief in the transformative power of higher education opportunity is a direct result of her own educational experience. A Pell Grant recipient and the first college graduate in her family, Kristin earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University.

Ever conscious of the doors that good public policy opened for her, she previously served at the U.S. Department of Education as senior advisor to the Under Secretary of Education. In that role, Kristin helped implement Secretary Margaret Spellings’ Commission on the Future of Higher Education. This work led to a reframing of the national postsecondary education agenda around outcomes and the largest single-year increase in Pell Grants in more than thirty years.

Kristin brought to her federal service a belief that innovative federal solutions come from state innovation – a perspective she gained while serving as the program director in the education division of the National Governors Association. She also directed the Washington, D.C. office of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, where she helped develop the first comparative 50-state report card on higher education performance, Measuring Up. Through these roles, she cultivated a record of networking states for broad national attention and action, while bringing to light a new way of looking at high school and college graduation rates and affordability..

Kristin splits her time between Parker, Colorado and Alexandria, Virginia. Appointed by Governor Jared Polis to serve on the board of Colorado’s largest Hispanic-serving institution, the Metropolitan State University of Denver, she presently serves as chair, after previously serving as vice chair and chair of the governance committee. She formerly served on the board of Generation Hope, which provides policy advocacy and direct support to parenting students and their children. She and her husband, Brent, share four children and a love for hiking and California wine.

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