Perspectives
Perspectives on academic portfolio strategy, credential design, and workforce alignment. For university presidents and provosts navigating consequential decisions.
What Your AI Exposure Score Is Actually Measuring
Three economists asked ChatGPT-5, Gemini 2.5, and Claude 4.5 which jobs are most exposed to AI. The models disagreed by a factor of 3.6. The reason isn't that AI is unpredictable. It's that the scores are measuring something else entirely, and provosts using them to justify portfolio decisions are relying on an instrument that was never built for that job.
Workforce Pell Is Final. Most Institutions Are Still Reading the Wrong Test.
Workforce Pell is final, and most of the coverage still focuses on the earnings test. Two filters- your institution's compliance history and your state's approval process- decide whether a program ever reaches that test at all.
Why Your Assessments Aren’t Producing Evidence Employers Can Use
Most credential programs are building rigorous assessments and still producing evidence employers cannot read. The problem is not employer behavior. It is three specific gaps in how assessment design connects to employer-legible evidence.
The Governance Gap: Why Good Credential Strategy Stalls Before It Starts
Most credential strategies know where the portfolio needs to go. The harder work is building the governance path that lets an institution actually get there.
Why More Credentials Won’t Fix the Employer Confidence Gap
Most large employers have announced some version of skills-based hiring. The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School found that fewer than 1 in 700 hires reflect it. Higher education has its own version of the problem, and it starts with whether employers can read what your credentials actually mean.
The AI Exposure Question Every Provost Should Be Asking Right Now
AI exposure is not an academic integrity question. It is a portfolio question. And provosts who are not asking it now will be answering harder questions later.
How to Know Which Programs to Cut, Grow, or Retire
Most institutions are making portfolio decisions without a real framework. This article offers one: a two-axis model that helps university presidents and provosts evaluate programs across workforce relevance and institutional fit, and decide what to invest in, evolve, reposition, or exit.
Selected Writing
The following articles were written prior to founding Brightline Strategy.
Strengthening Our Commitment to a Skills-Based Future — Western Governors University, February 2025
Skills-Based Education for the Future of Work — Western Governors University, January 2025
Closing the Skills Gap: An Inside Look at the Achievement Wallet — Forbes, December 2023
Open Skills Libraries Help Today's Education and Training Providers Respond to Skills-Based Hiring — EvoLLLution, May 2022
Student ROI and the Role of Stackable Credentials — WCET Frontiers, October 2021
Enabling Pathways to Opportunity Through a Skills-Based Architecture — Wiley / New Directions for Community Colleges, March 2021