Welcome back to California Competes in Dialogue, our newsletter featuring bold ideas to advance a strong economy and thriving communities through higher education.
California higher education is in a period where questions about access, learning, and value are being reshaped by advances in AI, financial pressures, and evolving labor market demands. The challenge ahead is not just adaptation, it is intentional design across systems that have historically operated in silos.
This issue highlights what is changing, what remains uncertain, and where California has the opportunity to act with clarity and coordination.
In this issue:
- CEO Corner: What makes CEO Su Jin Jez optimistic about how decisionmakers are navigating AI and higher ed’s next chapter
- Top Stories: California’s new coordinating entity and a smart change that expands CalFresh access for college students
- Research and Insights: Regional college ROI differences and what we know and don’t know about AI’s labor market impact
- Voices in Focus: Inland Empire leadership on economic mobility and the cross-sector coordination needed to advance it
CEO Corner
Every few years, some new development forces higher education to ask itself fundamental questions, questions we should welcome. Right now, that something is AI.
I’ve been thinking about these questions and what this moment actually means for higher education. And the honest answer is: we don’t fully know yet. Too much of the current conversation treats areas of uncertainty as if they’re resolved. Studies on AI’s impact on the labor market are few, their findings are narrow, and causation is far from established. We are still in a window where our choices matter, where they’ll shape whether negative assumptions become reality.
What makes me optimistic is the curiosity I see among faculty and institutional leaders, in stark contrast to the quick dismissal of online education I once encountered. This openness creates real possibilities: for reimagining how we strengthen learners’ critical thinking skills; for supporting faculty, staff, administrators, and students to navigate an AI-mediated world; and for challenging ourselves to unpack the difference between learning and performance.
We’re already seeing how AI can accelerate work we’ve long cared about: streamlining benefits access, improving credit for prior learning, smoothing transfer pathways. It opens new possibilities to reach goals that have stubbornly stayed out of reach.
California Competes doesn’t aim to have all the answers. We strive to ask better questions and steer the conversation toward what drives shared prosperity for California’s communities and the state as a whole.
So, AI is here. How can it help us achieve the future we want? And how do we create safeguards for the harms we know it can bring?
I’d welcome your perspective—email us to continue the conversation.
In partnership,
Top Stories
Governor Appoints Leader for California’s New Coordinating Entity
Governor Newsom has appointed Debbie Cochrane to be the first executive director of the California Education Interagency Council. As California works to strengthen alignment across higher education and workforce, this new coordinating entity can play a critical role in shaping pathways from education to opportunity. Debbie brings the experience, systems perspective, and leadership needed to help advance this work at this pivotal moment.
California Takes Steps to Streamline Students’ CalFresh Access
A new administrative change from the California Department of Social Services designates all public associate’s and bachelor’s degree-granting programs as Local Programs that Increase Employability, a key pathway for students to qualify for CalFresh and for existing CalFresh recipients to access higher education without losing their benefits. This change implements a critical provision of the CalFresh for Students Act (SB 961), our co-sponsored bill to expand students’ CalFresh access, and will reduce administrative burden, increase students’ food security, and improve college affordability and success statewide. Learn more about efforts to streamline students’ access to public investments through California ASPIRES, our cross-sector coalition focused on this work.
Research and Insights
Building a Shared Vision for CA’s Higher Ed Future
A new infographic summarizes a bold reimagining of California’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education. The Master Plan has been foundational to California’s postsecondary system, but it needs to evolve to meet the needs of today’s students and a rapidly changing economy. Learn where and why change is necessary, plus what structural moves California can make to advance this vision.
Where You Live Shapes College ROI
The latest installment of our Degrees of Value research series examines how higher education’s economic payoff varies by region throughout the state, building on our previous analysis of differences by race, ethnicity, and sex. We find that bachelor’s degrees pay off for most graduates across California, but a positive ROI is more likely in regions with strong economies, highlighting the importance of regional collaboration in strengthening the value of higher education.
AI and Labor Markets: What We Know, What We Don’t, and Why It Matters
The impact of AI on jobs is still unfolding, and the evidence base is more limited than the public conversation suggests. A new paper highlights both emerging signals and evidence gaps in understanding how AI is changing skill needs, firm capabilities, career pathways, and economic productivity.
Designing the Future of Online Learning in the AI Era
Together with higher education leaders from across California, we revisited our 2023 roadmap for the future of online education through a new lens: one shaped by the accelerating impact of AI and shifting workforce needs at our recent Innovation in California Higher Ed Convening. Thanks to our Game Changer Sponsors, Michelson 20MM Foundation, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, College Futures Foundation, Arizona State University, and the CSU Chancellor’s Office, for making this event possible.
Child Care Costs Are Blocking Parents’ College Paths
In a new report, we find that over 100,000 parents without degrees in the Bay Area want to pursue higher education but cite child care as a barrier to enrollment. For many parents, the cost and availability of child care determines whether going to college is even possible. When they cannot access child care, educational and career advancement is delayed or put out of reach, limiting economic mobility and opportunity across generations.
Crystal Clear: A New Season of Our Podcast, Degrees of Change
We launched the second season of our podcast, Degrees of Change, to mark our 15th anniversary. The latest episode explores the evolution of the student basic needs movement, a critical effort to improve college affordability and strengthen higher ed’s payoff. It features Dr. Rashida Crutchfield, professor at California State University, Long Beach, executive director of the Center for Equitable Higher Education, and a leader in this movement.
Voices in Focus
This issue’s insight comes from Dr. Ashish Vaidya, CEO of Growing Inland Achievement, which brings together partners from education, government, nonprofit, and business to improve educational attainment and economic mobility across the Inland Empire.
At California Competes’s recent Degrees of Value webinar, Ashish joined other leaders to discuss strategies to strengthen college’s value in California’s evolving economy.
