Refers to workers who return to their former employers after leaving their jobs. Key benefits of this practice include (1) employees can return to work without much onboarding or training, and (2) recruiters can streamline the hiring process. Considerations for this practice include (1) the importance of evaluating why the employee left and whether concerns have been addressed, and (2) ensuring employers do not unintentionally communicate to current staff that employees must leave to get a raise or promotion.
To facilitate hiring former employees, employers can focus on an off-boarding process in which they make it clear to employees that their work has been valued, and employees would be welcomed back if an opportunity arises.
In response to return-to-office mandates by companies, refers to the practice of workers going into the office, making their presence felt, and then leaving for alternative work environments more conducive to their working habits.
Refers to changes in an individual’s or family’s economic position over time, most commonly measured through income, earnings, or wealth. The term is used in several related ways across research, policy, and practice.
Earnings growth and financial stability (common applied use): Often refers to an individual’s ability to increase earnings, improve financial stability, and move into a more secure and sustainable economic position. This is the most common usage in higher education, workforce development, and credentialing discussions.
Return on investment (ROI) and time to sustainable wages (emerging use): Increasingly defined in terms of how quickly education or training leads to improved economic outcomes. Metrics commonly used: the speed at which a learner can earn back the cost of a program; and time to employment, wage gains, and attainment of sustainable or family-supporting wages. This framing is gaining traction in discussions of short-term credentials, workforce programs, and skills-based pathways.
Changes over a lifetime: Describes how a person’s economic situation improves (or declines) over the course of their working life; e.g., moving from lower-wage to higher-wage work over time.
Changes across generations: May refer to how a person’s economic position compares to that of their parents or family of origin; e.g., individual earning more than the household born into.
What “moving up” means (how improvement is measured): Economic mobility can also be understood in terms of whether people are better off than before (e.g., compared to their parents or earlier in their lives) — sometimes called absolute mobility; or whether people are moving up compared to others in the economy (e.g., from lower-income groups into higher-income groups — sometimes called relative mobility.
The meaning of economic mobility is shifting in practice. In traditional research, mobility has often been measured over long time horizons, such as across a career or across generations. Increasingly, mobility is being evaluated based on shorter-term outcomes, including speed to employment, time to wage gains, and return on investment (ROI) for education and training.
In a lifelong learning environment (sometimes described as a 100-year lifespan), economic mobility is no longer a one-time outcome but a repeated, cumulative process. Individuals may move in and out of learning and work multiple times, making mobility something that must be supported continuously rather than achieved once.
Philanthropy and investment firms form funder collaboratives to increase their impact (also called “multiplier impacts”). By pooling resources, funder collaboratives can get more money into a space, rather than just being the sum of donations that would have otherwise gone to the same issue. Working together, funders are able to put larger amounts of money behind impactful ideas, take a wider view of an issue, and take bigger risks.
When a funder collaborative establishes an alliance to direct money into a space, it can also get other philanthropies to put new funding into the cause. By combining larger scale and risk-taking, some funder collaboratives have been able to introduce innovative, effective investment programs that governments and more traditional foundations would not think to support.
Funder collaboratives vary in their legal, financial, and operational structures but generally are structured as “pooled funds” or “co-granting.”
Pooled funds are funder collaboratives where donors put their money into a shared pot, and then engage in internal processes to figure out where that funding should go.
Co-granting is where donors do not have any formal commitments to provide funding but are engaged in the process of sourcing investments.
Examples:
The END Fund was founded in 2012 by philanthropists and investment firms interested in ending neglected tropical diseases, such as trachoma and roundworms. The END Fund has 7,000 investors from 68 countries.
Since 2019, Farming the Future (UK-based funder collaborative) has helped foundations invest in innovative food nonprofits and agricultural solutions. The collaborative focuses on making the industrial food system more sustainable.
Blue Meridian Partners (BMP) is a funder collaborative whose platform allows philanthropists and funders to invest in social change together—in areas such as youth issues affecting all Americans, including health, education, and justice. BMP designs high-impact strategies worth tens of millions of dollars and then conducts “capital calls” of a pool of “general partners” to raise the required funds for the investment. Among its partners are multibillion-dollar endowments.
The Higher Education Act (HEA) requires that all career education programs receiving federal student aid “prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation.” On May 19, 2023, the US Department of Education Secretary published proposed new regulations to promote transparency, competence, stability, and effective outcomes for students in the provision of postsecondary education – and invited comments to the proposed regulations (comment period closed June 20, 2023). The regulations would make improvements in six areas of gainful employment (GE); financial value transparency; financial responsibility; administrative capability; certification procedures; and Ability to Benefit (ATB). (Federal Register)
The revised Gainful Employment Program Accountability Framework (Gainful Employment-GE) rule took effect July 1, 2024. Under this rule, the Department assesses whether programs offered by private for-profit institutions and certificate programs at all types of colleges meet the statutory requirement to prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation using two separate measures.
Share of annual earnings the typical graduates need to devote to paying their debt (“debt-to-earnings ratio”) must be less than or equal to 8%, or less than or equal to 20% of their discretionary earnings (defined as annual earnings minus 150% of the federal poverty guideline). This metric captures whether a program’s debt is affordable.
At least half of graduates have higher earnings than a typical high school graduate in their state’s labor force who never enrolled in postsecondary education. This “earnings premium” assesses whether the program enhances its students’ earnings potential.
Human Capital Development refers to the intentional process of strengthening and expanding individuals’ human capital throughout life through education, training, work experience, health, and other learning opportunities. The Stanford Center on Longevity and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences describes human capital as referring to the skills that human beings offer to employers in labor markets; 2) the capacities that enable personal growth and self-discovery; and 3) the many tasks and talents entailed in attending to the care and flourishing of others. Longer human lives that are more prosperous, equitable, and fulfilling require better nurturing and investment of human capital on these dimensions.
Human capital accrues from the earliest years (early children) to late adulthood. The longer the life and faster the speed of skill changes and job disruptions, the more likely individuals will experience multiple transitions between education and work across multiple jobs and career stages. The nation’s current learn-and-work ecosystem (especially the organization of education and employment) makes these transitions difficult and costly.
In the learn-and-work ecosystem, refers to the economic value generated by education, training, or credentialing programs—especially short-term credentials—measured using data specific to a defined geographic area (e.g., city, county, commuting zone, or state). This ROI typically captures the net benefits (such as increased wages, job placement, reduced social service costs, tax revenue) and costs (program delivery, administrative, opportunity costs) relative to the local labor market, recognizing that returns can vary significantly depending on regional industry composition, cost of living, employer demand, and economic conditions.
There is growing concern about the use of determining the ROI of shorter-term credentials using national workforce and wage data because these data may mask significant differences among states and regions; i.e., a short-term credential that produces high value in one metropolitan area may have limited value in another.
Localized ROI can help:
Policymakers and funders allocate resources more effectively.
Learners make better informed training and career decisions based on more relevant data.
Educational institutions design programs aligned with regional needs.
Employers understand the value of regional talent pipelines.
Often refers to evaluating what students will earn professionally based on their investment in an undergraduate or graduate degree, to determine if there is a positive return on their investment. The concept of ROI is that the upfront investment in acquiring the credential is offset by the increased earning potential and career advancement opportunities it provides. Indicators typically are economic and may include obtaining a job (employability), wage level, job mobility, and benefits acquired through employment. Economic ROI is just one measure of ROI in higher education.
Another important ROI is the maturation process students go through during their college experience (research finds that college serves as a capstone course for life by helping students mature and develop socially in order to become well-rounded and productive adults).
New ROI models are under exploration. One proposes a three-way model to measure the value of credentials which include short-term credentials: (1) Economic Value – value ascribed to credentials that directly connect to high-wage good jobs, and/or high-demand jobs. (2) Mobility – value ascribed to credentials that directly connect to academic (educational) and workforce advancement. (3) Engagement – value ascribed to credentials that directly connect to continued postsecondary investment by learners, such as credentials that increase the confidence of learners that future education is indeed for them — that they can pursue an educational journey and career journey.
A term used for mandates by employers for their workers to return-to-the office from remote work arrangements. Some posit there are two key factors behind RTO: to make it easier for managers to visibly exert control over employees, and to justify the sunk-cost of investments in offices.
Refers to the practice of some company managers offering flexible work to their own teams to retain talent, often going against company rules which have “return to work” mandates or employees will lose their job.
Alternative or related terms for this practice include:
Quiet Flexibility – informal flexibility granted by managers without formal approval / sanction.
Shadow Remote Work – used informally to describe when remote work continues unofficially despite formal policies.
Policy Discretion – neutral HR term for how managers interpret and enforce (or not) workplace rules.
Decentralized Compliance – organizational behavior–focused, referring to uneven enforcement of top-down mandates.
Managerial Discretion – the authority individual managers may use to interpret or selectively enforce corporate policies, including return-to-office (RTO) mandates.
Policy Drift – when the formal policy is not enforced as originally intended over time.
Student success in higher education extends beyond academic achievement and degree completion. It reflects an institution’s responsibility to create conditions in which students are able to thrive academically, personally, and professionally, from the point of recruitment through graduation and into their careers and/or further education. The approach includes:
providing equitable access
fostering belonging and well-being
offering proactive academic and career support
ensuring students are prepared to succeed beyond college.
As explained by the Tax Policy Center operated by the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution:
Colleges and Universities
Most private nonprofit colleges and universities are exempt from taxes due to their status as 501(c)(3) organizations and their educational mission. Institutions typically accumulate endowments to generate income used to supplements tuition and fees, state appropriations, and other funding sources to support the education of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as research, public service, and other institutional activities. Endowments provide a cushion that protects institutional budgets from cyclical pressures, unanticipated changes in enrollments, and other temporary revenue disruptions.
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) imposed a new tax on a small group of private nonprofit colleges and universities. Institutions that enroll at least 500 students and that have endowment assets exceeding $500,000 per student (other than assets used directly in carrying out the institution’s exempt purpose) pay a tax of 1.4% on their net investment income. The $500,000 threshold is not indexed for inflation. In 2022, the tax raised $244 million from 58 institutions.
The some 1,600 private nonprofit and more than 700 public four-year institutions in the U.S. collectively hold over $500 billion in endowment wealth—but 23 of these institutions hold approximately 50% of the assets.
Private Foundations
Private foundations are tax-exempt organizations established by an individual, family, or company for charitable purposes. Unlike higher education institution endowments, which accrue from multiple sources over time (e.g., multiple donors), foundations are required to pay an excise tax on their net investment income (generally 2%).
Nonoperating foundations funded by a single or small group of donors which distribute money to others rather than engage themselves in charitable activities, are required to pay out at least 5% of their funds each year. In contrast, operating foundations can receive donations from many donors and primarily operate charitable activities themselves rather than distribute grants. Like higher education institution endowments, they do not have payout requirements.
A term that describes approaches that grow ecosystems in which entrepreneurs build and scale technology-driven businesses, which in turn create high-skill and high-wage jobs, economic opportunity, and the industries of the future. Examples of TBEDs in the U.S. include Silicon Valley (California); Research Triangle (North Carolina); and Route 128 (Massachusetts). TBED components typically require:
Research: research base and capacity to generate knowledge
Commercializing research: mechanisms to transfer knowledge to the marketplace
Entrepreneurship: building and sustaining entrepreneurship culture
Investment Capital: investment and risk capital, including leveraging private investment funds with public funds, to support startups and emerging companies
Workforce: availability of technically skilled workforce, especially workers in STEM fields
