Built For Humans | The Rise Report | Issue 16

I’ve been writing about Workforce Pell implementation a lot lately, and one thing has become increasingly clear: most of the policy conversation is still about whether the rule is right, and not nearly enough of it is about whether states actually have the bureaucratic infrastructure to make it work.

This week, Nick Beadle – former chief of staff for workforce and communications at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Good Jobs Initiative, and now the writer behind the JOBS THAT WORK newsletter and founder of JOBS THAT WORK Solutions – argues that what Workforce Pell needs most right now isn’t another round of policy debate. It needs better bureaucratic engineering: the practical, often unglamorous work of drawing clear, simple throughlines between academic departments, state agencies, and governors’ offices so that the people responsible for quality can actually do their jobs.

As expected – Nick’s piece is a sharp, experienced read that I think is relatable for every state leader working to implement this new federal program.

Over the last several months, I have had a lot of in-person conversations with people in and around state government about what it will take to get Workforce Pell implemented. Sometimes, I watch folks  go through the mental calculus of all the people they need to get on the same page between academic departments and governors’ offices. Based on the look on their faces, it doesn’t seem like an easy or rewarding process. 

That ragged choose-your-own-adventure game has been a chief concern of mine for several months around Workforce Pell, the final rules for which were published this week. If you don’t know, Workforce Pell, coming July 1, will provide individual grants to lower-income students for workforce programs at accredited institutions, which I’m going to call “colleges” for the sake of clarity. Unlike the original Pell grants (“Pell Heavy,” if you will), Workforce Pell requires state governments to do quite a bit of blessing and quality control of Pell-funded programs. Governors (or people picked by a governor) must set up a process for blessing programs as meeting Workforce Pell’s requirements. 

Those requirements include the so-called “70-70 rule”—programs must have a 70 percent completion rate and a 70 percent rate of getting hired—and a requirement that each Workforce Pell-funded program stack into something bigger that improves a worker’s hireability. Based on the draft rule published by the Department of Education in March, that last part states will largely have to define and grade themselves. 

To use a highly technical term: that’s a lot of dang work—and it’s not even a complete list of their duties. Many states don’t have the systems in place to carry out what was largely an unfunded mandate from Congress. By not doing more to make the process piece of Workforce Pell more point-and-shoot for states, Ed likely set up a slow start for dollars with high expectations on the Hill. (I’ve joked—or at least I hope I’m joking—that some members of Congress expect Workforce Pell to fix everything from joblessness to piracy to the concept of seventh grade.)

In my experience, some of Workforce Pell’s fiercest advocates don’t love this conversation. I get it—they fought hard for years, and there are high expectations among them, too, around how Workforce Pell could build a new floor for quality in workforce programs. Sometimes, I feel like there’s a belief among advocates that talking about states potentially struggling with the administrative lift of Workforce Pell could undermine those quality controls.

I, too, want to fund better-quality workforce programs and think Workforce Pell is a great vehicle for it, but I also come at this from a slightly different angle given my experience. If we can build clearer and simpler bureaucratic throughlines from colleges to governors that reduce the weight they have to lift to get a program funded, the better we can guarantee that quality. I don’t hear a lot of energy around that in my conversations now. 

What we need is, for lack of a better term, better bureaucratic engineering. I joke that much of my job at the Department of Labor was being the person you called when you had some money and an interesting idea and you needed to make the two work together. My favorite work I ever did in the federal government was taking complex-to-a-fault workforce laws—hi WIOA!—and partnering with awesome colleagues to hit all the bases in a way that actually let the program generate the results intended before Congress added all that complication.  A lot of that work was building better processes to ensure the money did what it ought to. You need to draw swift, straight lines among  bureaucratic stops crafted to make sure each decision-maker knows their role and how to do it well. 

Even if I’m not sure they know that’s what they’re asking for, that’s what I hear from state leaders when they voice their concerns about Workforce Pell. They need to fashion processes that hit all of Congress’ checkpoints and maintain those quality controls by drawing swift, straight lines between academic departments and governors’ offices.

Or, to put it another way: it’s easier to maintain quality when you do the work to make it easy for the people who have to maintain quality to do their job. During the implementation of Workforce Pell, I have heard a lot of restating of the policy arguments for its structures, but I haven’t seen a lot of that practical, bureaucratic building. 

Bureaucracy doesn’t have to suck if it’s built for humans instead of forced upon them in the most annoying ways possible. That’s what we need now. It doesn’t dilute the policy of Workforce Pell at all—it strengthens it. 

Bureaucratic engineering—and offering help to states around it—is where I would focus my energy as an advocate. If you feel passionately about Workforce Pell, and it does start slow, I would take that reality in stride, then find a way to help states craft those swift, straight lines to move programs more smoothly to qualification. 

You’re not compromising—at all—on quality by making this process easier for states. And you can better meet Congress’ (and your) big expectations by building smarter bureaucracy that’s easier to use for all the humans involved.

Follow Nick here, and subscribe to the JOBS THAT WORK newsletter here.

This week, the Colorado Succeeds team is sharing their insights about the 2026 legislative session with me and our Rise Report readers. 

The throughline: Colorado ranks among the most educated states in the country, yet employers across healthcare, construction, skilled trades, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing continue to report serious hiring shortages. 

As Colorado Succeeds puts it, "the problem is not attainment but alignment."

Two parallel shifts are shaping the landscape. In the field, employers are no longer waiting for the education system to catch up on its own. The companies moving fastest are helping design training programs directly, telling educators what they actually need to hire for, and backing the organizations that can turn those needs into real programs. In policy, the question is changing. For years, success in postsecondary education meant enrollment numbers. Now, families, policymakers, and funders are asking the harder question of whether a credential actually leads to a stable career and economic mobility.

The session's most consequential postsecondary and workforce action was bipartisan legislation (HB26-1317) codifying the consolidation of postsecondary and workforce systems into a unified Postsecondary & Workforce Talent Agency by 2028. A 26-member Transition Advisory Committee begins meeting by July 1, 2026, and must submit its transition plan to the Joint Budget Committee by November 1, 2026. 

On higher education, the Thriving Institutions Designations for Higher Education legislation creates new state-level recognition for institutions that serve underserved student populations — including rural, low-income, first-generation, adult, and minority students — based on outcomes like completions and student success rather than enrollment alone. The bill emerged in part as a state-level response to federal cuts to funding for minority-serving institutions. The legislature also updated the higher education funding formula (HB26-1345) to better capture part-time and transfer students — who make up more than half of Colorado's higher education enrollees — based on recommendations from the Colorado Commission on Higher Education's 2025 report. Two additional bills expanded concurrent enrollment to include off-campus courses offered by higher education institutions, and added two student seats to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.

Colorado Succeeds’ own sector collaborative portfolio is one window into where employer-led talent strategy is gaining traction in the state, and where we are seeing measurable hiring outcomes. In future editions of The Rise Report, we will explore several of these partnerships in more detail.

The second Colorado Talent Academy cohort launched in April with 35 cross-sector leaders from K-12, postsecondary, workforce, training providers, state agencies, and business intermediaries.

The pattern across both the policy and the field work is the same: Colorado is moving from designing systems around institutions to designing them around learners and employers. The Transition Advisory Committee's work over the coming months will be one of the most consequential storylines we track in The Rise Report between now and November.

State Leadership on Work-Based Learning and Quality Coaching: The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has opened a call for state agencies and systems to join a new two-year initiative, Advancing Work-Based Learning Through Quality Coaching. The initiative is aimed at addressing a gap most states know well: work-based learning is a proven strategy for closing the distance between education and workforce readiness, but the policies and practices needed to scale it are still underdeveloped. Read more and learn how to engage in the work, here. Letters of interest are due May 29.

Women’s Bean Project Joins National ESE Data Pilot: Denver-based Women’s Bean Project is one of ten employment social enterprises selected for a new pilot partnership between Redefine Alliance and Corporation for a Skilled Workforce. The eight-month effort is the first CSW Workforce Benchmarking Network cohort focused exclusively on employment social enterprises (ESEs) – businesses that hire and train people facing significant barriers to employment, including chronic unemployment, justice system involvement, and housing instability. The Women’s Bean Project is also a participant in the Colorado Wage Outcomes Results Coalition (CO WORC) housed at the Colorado Evaluation & Action Lab, which links workforce program records with Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) payroll data through the Linked Information Network of Colorado.

ICYMI: Can Accountability Strengthen Higher Education’s Economic Promise? Last week, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) convened a day-long discussion on value-based accountability in higher education bringing together scholars, accreditors, government officials, and economic researchers. The conversation surfaced where policy consensus actually sits – there is broad agreement that more outcomes accountability is needed in higher education. The harder questions are how to measure value, who is responsible for doing so, and what the consequences of falling short should be. Notable contributions from: current Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent, former Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal, Postsecondary Commission’s Stig Leschly and Mathematica’s Whitney Kozakowski. The recording of the conversation is available here.

The Rise Report welcomes updates from our colleagues across Colorado. Think of this as your one-stop-shop for conference updates, new research + reports, job postings, and career moves.

Axios Live will host a conversation about the future of Colorado’s business landscape with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston on Wednesday, May 27 at 5:30pm at Asterisk. Register here.

The Techstars Workforce Development Accelerator celebrates its sixth annual Demo Day on Thursday, June 4 at 6pm at eTown Hall in Boulder. Eight startups from this year’s cohort will pitch live to an audience of investors, founders, mentors, and ecosystem partners. The 2026 cohort spans a wide range of the modern workforce challenge – from AI-powered caregiver training to platforms helping employers access hiring tax credits to a company designing protective workwear for women in male-dominated industries. Register here for the in-person event where founders will demonstrate and pitch their solutions.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is receiving nominations for its Top Small Business Awards through the CO–100, which is an exclusive list of the 100 best and brightest small businesses in America. Learn more and nominate a Colorado-based business here.

One of the best parts of doing this work in Colorado is that the people building our talent ecosystem are also building our restaurants, our hotels, our coffee shops and our communities.

On Friday, May 29 at 3pm, James Beard-honored Chef Mawa McQueen – the force behind Aspen’s MICHELIN-recommended Mawa’s Kitchen – opens her newest venture, Crepe Therapy Cafe, inside the Limelight Boulder hotel. The grand opening will feature crepes, a ribbon cutting, a champagne saber, and the kind of celebration worthy of a Friday afternoon ‘sweet treat.’

If you are in town and want to join me for crepes and connection, please RSVP here.

Until next week,
Alison