MIssion
Our mission is to co-design an inclusive, skills-based learn + work system with and for New Majority Learners that facilitates upward economic mobility and closes opportunity gaps.
OUR VISION
We envision a future where learn-and-work systems are intentionally designed with and for those who need to navigate a new economy.
The Lab’s work is advancing a new learn-and-work paradigm where…
Learners access stackable, affordable, skills-based pathways leading to good jobs that facilitate upward economic mobility.
Employers serve as active co-designers and validators of skills-based pathways.
Skills are visible and portable. Learners won’t just have “experience”; they will have validated skills that education institutions recognize for credit and employers recognize.
Success is intentionally designed, not accidental. We will reach a tipping point where community colleges operate as adaptive engines of regional economic growth, able to nimbly respond to the needs of both learners and employers.
In a time of disruption for higher education and the labor market, the Lab serves as a trusted designer, convener, and thought partner — testing what is next so that educators, employers, and systems can evolve more quickly and more justly. We invite you to help shape a future where learning is truly a lifelong, learner-centered experience that leads to great careers and purposeful lives.
Dr. Lisa Larson
CEO, Education Design Lab
OUR VALUES
We are biased toward action.
We are learner-driven.
We believe education is the most important lever for economic mobility.
We believe economic mobility can break the cycle of poverty.
OUR HISTORY
Redesigning the possibility of education for over a decade
2013
The Lab is incubated at George Mason University and incorporated as a national nonprofit in 2013. The first design challenge: How might we capture learning outside the classroom in ways that will be meaningful to employers? That challenge led to the Lab’s internationally recognized framework for 21st century skills, which we now call “durable skills.”
2014
The Lab publishes our first white paper: The Ed Tech Revolution is About to Become the Learner Revolution, where we predicted technology and changing learner attitudes would force the unlocking of degrees to empower all learners to disintermediate their education, choosing their learning pathways on their own terms.
2015
As part of the White House Symposium on Innovation in Higher Education, the Lab leads a design session with 40 education innovation leaders across the country to help answer: How might government best accelerate scalable pathways to high-quality, low-cost, workforce-ready credentials?
2016
A “Rethinking College” story by PBS NewsHour features the Lab and our 21st Century Skill Badging Challenge with Georgetown University, George Mason University, and the University of Virginia.
2017
The Lab begins the Seamless Transfer Pathways Design Challenge, addressing the broken pipeline between two- and four-year colleges. This is the Lab’s first multi-year design challenge.
2018
The 21st Century Skills Badges Toolkit is launched as an open educational resource containing curriculum, assessments, and training. Over 1,400 institutions and educators accessed the toolkit, which grows into the vsbl (pronounced “visible”) micro-credentialing platform.
2019
The Lab introduces the “New Majority Learner” concept as part of “The Learner Revolution: How Colleges Can Thrive in a New Skills and Competencies Marketplace.” This landmark paper provides guidance for intra-preneurs who want to move their institutions toward preparing students for a more skills-based digital future.
The Lab prototypes our first stackable pathway in healthcare at Virginia Western Community College (Roanoke, Va.), which blends noncredit and credit classes. Those learnings led to the creation of a new class of credential: Micro-pathways — high-quality, stackable credentials that can be completed in under a year and lead to employment in high-demand fields and progress toward a degree.
2020
The Community College Growth Engine Fund launches with funding from national philanthropies and in partnership with the League for Innovation in the Community College. The design accelerator brings community colleges, employers, and learners together to collaboratively design, implement, and scale micro-pathways. Our first cohort includes Ivy Tech Community College (Indiana); Prince George’s Community College (Maryland); Austin Community College District (Texas); Pima Community College (Arizona); Seattle Colleges (Washington); and four colleges within the City University of New York (CUNY) system. The Lab’s marquee program celebrates with a virtual kickoff event featuring Wes Moore in 2020, and shares early insights a year later, including the idea that the micro-pathways design process is a gateway to community college transformation. The program later drops “Fund” from the name and is now referred to as “Growth Engine.”
Also in 2020: For the first time, the Lab focuses on rural communities with the launch of BRIDGES Rural Design Challenge, which grows into the Rural College Design and Data Academy.
2022
The Learner Revolution joins forces with the Skills Revolution in the big think paper: Skills Visibility: Why and How a Skills-Based Economy can be More Equitable, which addresses what closing the wage and skills gaps will take at the ecosystem level.
2023
The Lab and the Montana University System partner to launch our first state-wide initiative: Year to Career, a first-of-its-kind micro-pathways initiative across Montana.
The Lab publishes Transforming Community Colleges: 5 Design Questions to Shape the Future of Learning. This framework anchors our ongoing Reimagining Community Colleges Design Challenge — a multiyear initiative to help community colleges implement strategic transformation plans that advance a future-forward vision.
2024
The Lab receives a $6 million unrestricted grant from MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving Foundation, our largest unrestricted award to date.
2025
Milestone moment: The Community College Growth Engine expands to 100 community colleges across 20 states, including Montana, Texas, and Virginia.
OUR FOUNDER
Kathleen deLaski is an education and workforce designer, as well as an author. She founded the Education Design Lab in 2013 to help colleges begin the journey to reimagine higher education toward the future of work.
