Learning and Work, Connected: What We Heard in Pittsburgh

At CAEL's 2026 annual conference, colleges, workforce boards, employers, labor groups, funders, and policymakers shared one room in Pittsburgh. CAEL President and CEO Earl Buford named the our collective task in his opening remarks: "to make learning visible, make opportunity possible, and make economic mobility more probable."

Across keynotes, panels, and hallway conversations, one idea kept coming back. Learning and work are stronger when they're connected.

Building economic mobility starts at the local level

Dr. Quintin Bullock, president of the Community College of Allegheny County, shared that more than seven million Pennsylvanians are working without four-year degrees, and that there are more than two job postings for every unemployed resident. "This region cannot simply recruit its way to prosperity," he said. "We must educate our way there."

“For too long, this country has treated the adult learner as a side door to prosperity — a special population, an exception to the traditional design of higher education,” Dr. Bullock continued. “In this region, at this hour, that thinking is insufficient. Quite frankly, it is backwards. Adult learners are not the side door. They are the main entrance.”

He also put employers on the hook, asking them to audit their job postings for unnecessary degree requirements and co-design programs with a community college.

Economic mobility is built locally. When employers, colleges, and workforce partners in the same labor market share a picture of the jobs and skills in demand, adults can get the credit and credentials that lead to real jobs in their communities.

Making experience count

Many adult learners already have the skills, but too often, the system doesn't recognize them. Dr. Sonya Christian, chancellor of the California Community Colleges, showed what changes when it does. More than 101,000 working adults in California have received credit for prior learning — growth of 226% in just a few years. Veterans now automatically receive 12 college credits for military training. In the future, apprentices will earn college credit automatically, with working journey-level tradespeople being contacted proactively now about how their experience translates to, for example, 32 credits at Santa Ana College.

Keynote speaker Leon Ford, a Pittsburgh author and co-founder of The Hear Foundation, spoke from his own experience. After the system failed to recognize his learning and skills, community members opened doors anyway. "They saw value in my lived experience. Although I didn't have a college degree... they recognized that I experienced some things at the hands of many different systems that were broken, and we had a responsibility to fix this together."

Experience matters even more in a 'low-hire, low-fire' labor market

Noting that his views are his own, Russ Mills of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland described a static labor market: Job openings are down sharply, hiring is flat, and quits and layoffs are low. Employers say they aren't hiring or firing in large numbers but would "jump at" a candidate with a hard-to-find skill set.

"There's a lot of implications… in that for this group," he said, speaking to the room, "particularly how we think about skilling, credentialing, and adult education."

For workers who can't count on a new job to move up, skills and credentials become the way forward.

Investing in the whole ecosystem

The closing session brought five funders to the stage who emphasized that philanthropy gets the most leverage when it aligns on a simple shared goal. Brittany Corde of Ascendium Education Group described a North Star of "investments that increase the upward mobility for learners from all low-income backgrounds." Matt Zieger, the former chief programs & portfolio officer at the GitLab Foundation, explained that his team measured every grant by whether it improved people's lifetime earnings.

Funders also agreed that money goes further when it supports whole ecosystems, not single programs, and when employers are at the table from the start. Archie Cubarrubia of ECMC Foundation put it simply: "You can't do it alone. So let's do it together."

A network that works

That spirit of partnership was the point of the CAEL conference. Ford challenged attendees to act on it: "I don't want you to just leave here feeling inspired. I want you to do something."

CAEL is building the structure to make that happen. Buford announced the CAEL National Leadership Network, chaired by board member Lisa Schumacher of McDonald's, to advance cross-sector partnerships for economic mobility. He also announced Workforce Works, an affiliation with Midwest Urban Strategies that connects urban workforce boards, employers, and education partners.

Dr. Christian urged every attendee to bring a colleague into the CAEL community because “we live in these nested ecosystems” and promised to help double the conference's size when it heads to Denver in 2027.

Learning happens everywhere. If we make it visible and connect it to work, we can make opportunity possible — enabling economic mobility for all adult and working learners. See you in Denver.