Kristin Hultquist Featured in Forbes Higher Ed Article

On the heels of a disappointing January jobs report, our CEO Kristin Hultquist is featured in Forbes, drawing on Workforce Pell perspectives from her recent service on the AHEAD committee.

The piece highlights a powerful “trifecta of opportunity” for young people: earning industry-recognized credentials in high school, gaining career-connected summer experience in healthcare, and leveraging the new Workforce Pell Grants launching this July.

The big idea? This only works if we treat short-term credentials and career pathways as strategic, high-value choices, not as fallback options. Workforce Pell is the policy centerpiece driving that shift.

But real challenges remain. Rural-serving institutions could face unintended barriers if the program’s value-added earnings metric isn’t adjusted for regional wage differences. And institutions everywhere must meaningfully recognize prior work and learning while ensuring policies, practices, and program design truly support on-time completion.

As Kristin notes, “There’s no reason one — or even two — short-term credentials should limit a student’s ability to earn a bachelor’s degree. We owe it to all students to finally get on-time completion right.”

➡️ Read the article here.