National Organizations Align to Advance Learning Mobility

Sixteen national organizations join forces to connect the systems, standards, and practices that can help learning move with the learner. 

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, 16 leading national organizations launch the Learning Mobility Coalition, a cross-sector effort to make learning records more portable, trusted, and useful as learners move across institutions, into the workforce, and across state lines.

 

Over a lifetime, learners accumulate courses, credentials, credit for prior learning, and skills demonstrated through work and experience. Yet those records often remain fragmented within and across institutions and systems, making it difficult for learners to carry forward what they have already learned. The Learning Mobility Coalition brings together the organizations needed to change that. Drawing on complementary expertise and national reach across education and workforce, the Coalition will connect efforts that have too often advanced in parallel, and accelerate progress on shared challenges.

 

The need is growing. As states develop talent marketplaces and skills-based systems, and as learners increasingly move among education, work, and other forms of learning, the ability to understand and trust what a learner knows and can do is essential. However, that kind of mobility does not happen through technology alone. It requires alignment across the institutions, organizations, and systems that create, record, evaluate, exchange, and use learning information.

 

“AACRAO is proud to continue convening this work through the Learning Mobility 

Coalition, bringing together education, employer, workforce, and state partners to 

strengthen the systems and practices that help put learning records to work for learners.” 

– Melanie Gottlieb, Executive Director, AACRAO

 

The Coalition provides a national structure for organizations to unify their work and establish the institutional capacity, shared infrastructure, technical support, and connections needed for learning mobility to work at scale. Its members span the full ecosystem through which learning moves: 

 

• 1EdTech
• AAC&U — American Association of Colleges and Universities
• AACRAO — American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers
• AACC — American Association of Community Colleges
• ACE — American Council on Education
• CAEL — Council for Adult and Experiential Learning
• C-BEN — Competency-Based Education Network
• EDUCAUSE
• NACADA — The Global Community for Academic Advising
• NACE — National Association of Colleges + Employers
• NASH — National Association of Higher Education Systems 
• NASPA — Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education
• NASWA — National Association of State Workforce Agencies
• SHEEO — State Higher Education Executive Officers Association 
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation
• UPCEA — The Online and Professional Education Association

 

The Coalition works in partnership with the Learn & Work Ecosystem Library and StrategyForward Advisors, a postsecondary policy, strategy, and intermediary firm, which serves as a strategic partner to facilitate and support the coalition. 

 

Together, the coalition is working toward a future in which learning moves with the learner: across institutions, sectors, systems, and state lines.

 

“Learning mobility leads to economic mobility. Joining this coalition amplifies our collective capacity to ensure educators, trainers, and employers recognize the competencies people already possess and connect them directly to rewarding opportunities.” 

– Earl Buford, President, CAEL

 

A Shared Agenda for Learning Mobility

The coalition, with support from Walmart, will focus on building the conditions that allow learning to move more effectively across institutions and into the talent marketplace. Its work will center on four interconnected priorities:

• Strengthening institutional capacity so colleges and universities are prepared to create, steward, and use interoperable learning records.
• Coordinating technical assistance so institutions and partners can more easily access expertise, tools, and resources across the field.
• Advancing shared infrastructure through common principles, standards, and tools that enable learning records to move across systems.
• Building the institution-to-marketplace bridge so learning records can connect with state talent marketplaces and other systems that help learners pursue education and employment opportunities.

 

“For NASH member systems, the fragmentation of learner records is a key pain point 

that impacts data, technology, policy and most importantly students. Increasing 

standardization and interoperability will be invaluable for systems.” 

– Daniel Knox, Vice President for Innovation, NASH

 

The goal is a learning ecosystem in which a learner’s record can travel with them, remaining portable, trusted, and useful wherever their learning and career journey takes them.

 

“Student affairs professionals support students as they develop real-world skills through leadership, experiential learning, and on-campus employment. It is important to note that students also need the tools to translate those experiences into skills they can name, document, and carry with them into the workplace.” 

– Jhenai Chandler, Vice President of Research, Policy, & Student Success, NASPA

 

From Acceleration to Learning Mobility

The Learning Mobility Coalition builds on the foundation of the LER Accelerator, launched in 2023 to bring national associations, institutions, and technical partners together to advance interoperable learning and employment records (LER). Over the last three years, the LER Accelerator demonstrated the power of coordinated action to address shared challenges and advance practical solutions. 

 

The Coalition carries the work forward with broader, cross-sector representation focusing on connecting institutional efforts with the workforce and state systems that increasingly depend on portable, trusted learning information.

 

“The LER Accelerator advanced a common set of principles, elevated this work across each association’s constituencies, and supported institutions building their own learning and employment record systems. The Learning Mobility Coalition brings in new partners and carries that foundation into something larger, with the same goal: building an ecosystem where learning is verified, validated, and trusted, creating frictionless pathways from learning to employment.”
– Julie Uranis, Sr. VP, Online and Strategic Initiatives, UPCEA

 

“We’ve already seen through the LER Accelerator what’s possible when leading 

organizations bring their expertise together. This coalition takes that work to the next 

level to turn shared momentum into practical solutions that help learners carry their 

achievements with them and use them to open new opportunities throughout their lives.” 

– Curtiss Barnes, CEO, 1EdTech

 

About the Learning Mobility Coalition

The Learning Mobility Coalition brings together national associations across higher education, employers, workforce development, and state-facing systems to advance learning mobility at scale. The Coalition strengthens the capacity, infrastructure, and connections needed to make learning records more portable, trusted, and useful across institutions, sectors, and state lines, helping to ensure that learning can move with the learner.

 

To learn more about the Learning Mobility Coalition, visit the initiative website. 

 

About NASH

Founded in 1979, the National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH) works to advance the role of multi-campus systems and the concept of systemness to create a more vibrant and sustainable higher education sector. NASH represents the 110 public higher education systems in the U.S., which include more than 1,450 institutions and serve 16.2 million students nationwide. Learn more at www.nash.edu.