The report, “Untapped Opportunity: Meet California's 6.4 Million Potential Graduates,” was released this month by California Competes: Higher Education for a Strong Economy, a nonpartisan research and policy organization based in Oakland. It profiles residents ages 25 to 54 who finished high school or earned an equivalent credential but never completed an associate degree or higher, a group the organization calls “potential graduates." The study refreshes a statewide portrait California Competes first published in 2021.
“They represent one of the state’s greatest opportunities to expand economic mobility, strengthen the workforce, and fuel California's economic future,” said Dr. Su Jin Jez, the group’s chief executive officer, in an interview with The EDU Ledger.
Drawing on U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates from 2020 to 2024, the researchers found that 48% of potential graduates, about 3.1 million people, have attended college at some point. Roughly 2.9 million completed at least a year of coursework before leaving.
The population is largely Latinx. About 3.3 million, or 51%, identify as Latinx. White residents account for 26%, Asian Californians 9%, and Black Californians 7%. Latinx and Black adults are disproportionately represented: 49% of Latinx Californians and 50% of Black Californians ages 25 to 54 fall into the category, compared with 39% of all state residents in that age range.
Men outnumber women in the group by more than half a million, 3.5 million to 2.9 million.
Work and family obligations weigh heavily. Some 4.7 million potential graduates hold jobs, including 3.8 million who work full time, and about three in 10 are employed in service or retail positions, where schedules frequently shift with little notice. More than 2.7 million are parents of children under 18, among them 49% of the women and 36% of the men.
Money is tight for many. Statewide, potential graduates report a median household income of $103,000, below the $125,000 median for all Californians ages 25 to 54, with regional figures ranging from $72,000 in Imperial County to $124,000 in the Bay Area. Yet 46% live in households that fall short of a living wage, the minimum needed to cover food, housing, health care, childcare, transportation, and other necessities. Among single adults raising children, fewer than a quarter clear that bar.
Geography compounds the challenge. Potential graduates make up 55% of working-age adults in Imperial County, 54% in the state’s North-Far North region and 52% in both the Upper Sacramento Valley and the Inland Empire, compared with 28% in the Bay Area. The inland and rural regions with the highest concentrations are home to 40% of potential graduates but only 32% of Californians ages 25 to 54, and they have fewer college campuses.
The report also counts about 488,000 potential graduates with limited English proficiency, nearly three-quarters of whom speak Spanish at home, and roughly 191,000 military veterans.
The findings arrive as California confronts a shrinking pipeline of traditional students. The number of high school graduates in the state is projected to fall by more than 30%, the report notes, citing Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education projections, while the share of recent graduates heading straight to college continues to slide. At the same time, jobs requiring a college degree are expected to make up 46% of California employment, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
“Talent exists in every corner of California, but our higher education system wasn't designed with today's learners in mind,” Jez said. “We need a system that meets adults where they are, with flexible pathways, greater affordability, and supports designed around their lives. This is particularly important as the number of high school graduates decline, and our state can no longer depend on this traditional pathway to higher education and a strong economy.”
The authors argue that California's public colleges and universities have changed little since the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, and still largely assume students are recent high school graduates supported by their parents and able to move near campus. Classes and advising are often available only during weekday business hours, and courses run on 10- to 16-week terms that leave working adults little margin if a job or family emergency forces them to withdraw.
The stakes are considerable. Compared with working-age Californians who stopped at a high school diploma, bachelor's degree holders are less than half as likely to live in poverty, 8% versus 20%, and have a median net worth of $582,000, more than six times the $76,000 held by their counterparts. California is now tied with Louisiana for the nation's highest poverty rate.
To close those gaps, California Competes calls for three broad shifts: building flexible pathways, advancing affordability, and designing student services around the needs of working adults, parents, and multilingual learners.
Among its recommendations, the organization urges colleges to expand online and hybrid instruction, offer competency-based programs and award credit for knowledge gained on the job or in the military. It also recommends shorter five- to eight-week terms, proactive outreach to former students and an end to withholding transcripts over unpaid fees, a practice the report says some campuses continue despite a 2019 state law barring it.
On financial aid, the report presses lawmakers to remove age-related barriers in the Cal Grant program. Older students who enroll directly at a four-year institution or apply only after transferring generally compete for a limited pool of about 13,000 awards a year. A 2022 law that would have lifted those restrictions never took effect for lack of funding.
The authors point to evidence that combined supports work. The City University of New York's Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, which pairs tuition waivers, textbooks and transit passes with intensive advising and tutoring, nearly doubled three-year graduation rates in a randomized trial, 40% compared with 22% for a control group.
The potential return is substantial. A separate Georgetown analysis cited in the report estimates that raising college attainment to 70% across all major demographic groups in California would yield $4.4 trillion in benefits over 50 years, more than paying for itself through higher tax revenue and lower public spending.
