For the last 15 years, I’ve devoted my career to helping students not just graduate, but thrive—especially those from historically underserved communities. But lately, a question keeps echoing in my head: So what?
I’ve built initiatives to elevate student voice, sat in strategy rooms crafting student success frameworks, worked alongside data scientists, peer mentors, deans, and nonprofit partners. I’ve held the hands of students weary of participating in another change effort that they knew in the hearts would go nowhere. I’ve cried alongside students who, try as they might, could not find a strong foothold in their campus community. I’ve stood in the crowd at graduation, eyes wet, as the first in a family walked the stage.
And I’ve seen real moments of change.
When I entered this field, “student voice” was more of a turn-of-phrase than a truth—often code for let them speak, but don’t actually listen. We’ve made progress since then, but I’ve also watched our systems become obsessed with improvement metrics and project cycles. We map change in three-month, six-month, and three-year increments, as if transformation follows a project timeline.
This cage of Western Time insists that change must be immediate and measurable. But the kind of change that untangles generational harm or rebuilds trust—it doesn’t move on a dashboard. It moves slowly. Relationally. Often invisibly.
The Numbers Don’t Lie. But They Don’t Satisfy, Either.
Bachelor’s degree attainment has risen across all racial and ethnic groups. According to Lumina Foundation’s A Stronger Nation report, in 2023 the percentage of U.S. adults (ages 25–64) holding a bachelor’s degree was:
· 67.1% of Asian adults
· 52.0% of white adults
· 36.1% of Black adults
· 29.7% of Hispanic adults
· 25.4% of Native American and Alaska Native adults
Fifteen years earlier, those rates were significantly lower: 60.1% (Asian), 44.5% (white), 28.1% (Black), 20.3% (Hispanic), and 23.9% (Native). But the more pressing story lies in the gaps between groups—which, despite overall growth, have remained largely unchanged.
Gaps That Undermine Our Future
This matters. The U.S. population is changing. Today, 57.1% of Americans identify as white alone. By 2045, no racial or ethnic group will hold a majority.
Yet only 36.1% of Black adults and 29.7% of Hispanic adults hold bachelor’s degrees. These aren’t just equity gaps—they’re structural fault lines for our economic future. If our fastest-growing populations remain under-credentialed, we risk building a future that’s fundamentally short-sighted and unsustainable.
Why Credentials Alone Aren’t the Answer
Some argue we should focus more on short-term credentials. And while they do offer tactical value, that focus is incomplete—and potentially harmful—especially if we ignore outcomes and economic mobility. Research from Lumina and Georgetown’s CEW is clear: a four-year degree remains the strongest predictor of living-wage employment and upward mobility. It opens more doors, even while structural barriers remain.
I remember facilitating a student workshop on this very topic. After walking through different postsecondary options, a student raised his hand. “Are you saying a four-year degree isn’t worth it?” he asked, tearfully. For his family, this had been the dream for generations. He felt like I was dismantling something sacred.
And he wasn’t wrong to feel that way.
For decades, we’ve sold the dream of the 4-year degree without delivering on the full promise—especially for students of color and first-gen students. The dream is real. But so is the toll.
Degrees That Deliver—Or Don’t
The barriers to completion are deep-rooted. Students of color are more likely to attend under-resourced colleges, be underprepared by inequitable K–12 systems, or face hostile campus climates. A degree may open doors—but it doesn’t erase generations of exclusion.
And the price tag is steep given current median household incomes:
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Black families: $56,490
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Hispanic families: $65,540
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White families: $89,050
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Asian families: $112,800
Black borrowers hold more student debt, face higher default rates, and Black women are the most indebted group in the nation. What was once a gateway to opportunity now resembles a toll booth. And those with the least generational wealth are being charged the highest fare.
Transformation, or Just Transactions?
I used to believe that smarter advising, more inclusive pedagogy, and better data systems would be enough. But now I wonder whether we’ve confused change management with transformation. We’ve been trying to spreadsheet our way to equity, to map belonging in quarterly reports.
Meanwhile, the business of higher ed has become obsessed with outcomes without intimacy, with scale without soul. We’ve lost sight of what we’re actually trying to build. We’ve been measuring degrees conferred and loans allocated and careers found, but not healing, or freedom, or joy.
And I’ve started to ask: What exactly have I been working towards?
Reimagining the Work
That’s why I’ve shifted course. My company, Kinetic Seeds, was founded to support student success. That mission hasn’t changed—but the lens has.
Closing attainment gaps should be a national priority, no matter where you sit on the political spectrum. I’m no longer content to help students survive within broken systems. I want to work with others to reimagine the systems themselves. Audre Lorde’s famous warning—that the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house—has never felt more urgent or more true.
That’s also why I’m co-writing a book with one of the students I once served. It’s called Where Should We Begin? Navigating the River of Power and Possibility. Part memoir, part systems thinking, part cultural and ecological reckoning. We’re asking: What do we do when traditional paths to prosperity no longer lead where they once did? What kind of future are we really preparing today’s generation for?
And crucially: What kind of future could we prepare them for, if we were brave enough to recast the role of higher education?
Seeds of What Could Be
That bravery already exists. I’ve seen it in the quiet revolutions taking place across the country:
- At Cooperation Jackson, where Black-led cooperatives are reclaiming land and local economies
- At the Tomaquag Museum, where Indigenous educators are reviving language and kinship systems
- At Soul Fire Farm, where Black and Brown farmers are restoring food sovereignty and stewardship
- At Mycelium Youth Network, where young people are learning climate adaptation through ancestral and emerging technologies
- At Freedom University in Georgia, where undocumented students are reclaiming education as sanctuary and resistance
These aren’t fringe efforts. They’re foreshadowing.
They show us what’s possible when we stop trying to scale everything and start seeding what matters: care, trust, belonging, vision.
So What Now?
If you’re an educator, policymaker, funder, or institutional leader, this isn’t a call to abandon ship. But it is a call to remember higher education’s soul.
Some things are meant to scale. Others are meant to seed.
And if that’s true, then higher education’s role just got a whole lot more sacred.
Christine Flanagan is founder of Kinetic Seeds, a design and strategy studio working at the intersection of power, possibility, and time.