Dear colleagues,
I hope each of you is looking forward to restorative time with friends and family as we close out the year.
Much of our work this year has focused on sharpening our understanding of the barriers that limit learners’ opportunities to move from high school into postsecondary education and meaningful careers. When I joined the foundation, I was eager to build on the innovative work already underway, and the extraordinary progress in tech solutions, particularly in credit mobility and advising, has only strengthened that optimism and shown what’s possible when partners pursue new approaches.
While it would be impossible to capture every accomplishment from 2025, I want to highlight a few of the milestones our Pathways team helped support this year. To all our colleagues and partners, whether your work is reflected in the examples below or not, please know how grateful I am for your dedication to innovation, collaboration, and, above all, to ensuring that every student has access to the high-quality guidance and navigation they deserve. Please reach out anytime with questions or if you’d like additional resources on any of the highlights below.
Highlights From the Field in 2025
- Innovations in learning mobility
In 2025, Ithaka S+R, EQS/NASH, and Arizona State University advanced major tools designed to make credit transfer more transparent and student-centered. A staggering number of learners lose time and money when transferring colleges, only being able to apply an average of 32% of earned credits at new institutions. Ithaka S+R’s Universal Transfer Explorer now includes data from 18 institutions and more than 2.1 million course equivalencies, with a reverse-lookup feature that helps students understand how their credits count at potential destination schools. EQS/NASH implemented CourseWise with four state systems and 24 institutions, using AI to streamline course matching and build a growing national equivalency database. ASU continued to scale the Triangulator working with institutions to modernize credit evaluation. All three organizations will introduce significant enhancements in 2026, including student-facing tools, expanded institutional participation, and deeper analytics that improve transfer planning for learners.
- CARA – Framework for High Quality Advising
CARA launched the Framework for High Quality Advising, an evidence-based guide designed to support institutions and systems in delivering advising that is developmentally appropriate and student-centered. The framework offers concrete practices, tools, and professional learning supports that help schools and colleges build advising cultures that foster a sense of belonging and self-determination among students. By emphasizing both relational and technical components of advising, CARA is helping the field elevate expectations for what students deserve and the type of support they receive. These best practices lay the groundwork for technology solutions that can accelerate the delivery of high-quality advising at scale, including, for example, the work already underway through CampusEvolve’s Pathways AI Project.
- Campus Evolve – The Pathways AI Project
CampusEvolve is partnering with educators and state leaders in Washington on the Pathways AI Project, a 15-month effort to develop an AI Guide for High Schools that helps students navigate the transition from high school into postsecondary credentials and high-quality careers. The project brings together the College Success Foundation, Washington Student Achievement Council, Washington Workforce Training & Education Coordinating Board, a set of school districts, MDRC, and several AI solution providers. These partners are co-designing and testing the tool through rapid-cycle design sprints with students and advisors to ensure it complements human guidance. Their work reflects a broader movement toward using technology not as a substitute for human support, but as an engine that amplifies it.
- More essential than ever - Community College Research Center (CCRC)
The CCRC team’s book is a great addition to any reading list, and I encourage you to give it a look. It offers a compelling look at the long arc of the Guided Pathways movement and the vital role community colleges play in advancing upward mobility and strengthening our workforce. Drawing on more than a decade of transformation across 100+ colleges, the authors documented how institutions are removing structural barriers, improving transfer and career outcomes, and accelerating students’ paths to completion. CCRC's Dual Enrollment Equity Pathway (DEEP) work builds on the transformational ideas that originated in the Guided Pathways reform to expand college access by extending guided pathway reforms to dual enrollment programs.
- California – Understanding the regional pathways landscape
As part of our work to understand local and regional barriers and opportunities, we identified four partners we will engage in the new year to help lead multi-sector regional and state partnerships that support coherent design and execution of strategies to better support students as they navigate pathways. I hope in the new year to do deeper dives on our local and regional work happening across the country to share some of the best practices happening on the ground and elevate the measurable impacts that are surfacing.
- The Commission on Purposeful Pathways
The Commission on Purposeful Pathways released a concept paper, previewing the launch of a comprehensive set of recommendations that will be published in early 2026. The Commission brings together national leaders to reimagine the systems and structures that support student advising, career exploration, and navigation. Their forthcoming report will highlight the need for aligned data, coherent policy, and sustained investment to ensure all students can pursue meaningful postsecondary and career pathways. I look forward to sharing more about that report and its recommendations in the new year and would encourage you to sign up for updates on the Commission's progress.
As we close out 2025, I am reminded once again that the progress we have made is only possible because of the deep commitment, shared purpose, and relentless problem-solving each of you bring to this work. Our partners across the country continue to inspire us with their creativity and determination, and I am grateful every day to be part of a team that matches their energy and ambition. The year ahead will no doubt bring new challenges and new opportunities, but I am confident that together we will continue to push the field forward in ways that directly improve the lives of students and families.
Thank you for all you do, and I hope you find time in the coming weeks to rest, reconnect, and recharge. I look forward to all we will accomplish together in 2026.
With gratitude,
Cheryl Hyman,
Director, Pathways