Louisiana Tackles Brain Drain with New Career Alignment Strategy

BATON ROUGE, La. – Many Louisiana graduates are leaving the state to find meaningful employment elsewhere, while employers are struggling to find the skilled workforce they need.

Through Senate Concurrent Resolution 38, in 2025, the Louisiana Legislature established the Task Force on Career Alignment to find solutions to both problems. The focus is on developing a new statewide strategy that recognizes that higher education’s success today includes both talent development and career-connected learning, with an emphasis on retention of graduates in Louisiana’s workforce.

“This is a mindset shift. We are at a different day in Louisiana,” said Senator Rick Edmonds, the bill’s author. “As leaders, if we don’t stand up and have a higher threshold of demand, we’re not going to take Louisiana where she needs to go. We want to put students on a pathway to excellence from the day they walk onto campus.”

To better align its strategy with national best practices, the Task Force engaged the services of the Strada Education Foundation, which published the State Opportunity Index. The Index centers on five research-backed keys to improve employment outcomes for learners and employers alike: Clear Outcomes, Quality Coaching, Affordability, Work-Based Learning, and Employer Alignment.

According to Strada, internships and apprenticeships currently have the strongest evidence base for improving student outcomes. Seventy-three percent of graduates who completed a paid internship secured a first job that requires their degree, compared to 44 percent of those who did not complete an internship.

“Louisiana has made very important strides, getting now over half of working age adults a credential beyond high school,” said Dr. Ruth Watkins, Strada President of Postsecondary Education. “The next step is to ensure that those credentials align with Louisiana’s workforce needs in the economy that can both translate to opportunities for individuals and families and meet the needs of the state’s industries.”

In the 2025 State Opportunity Index by Strada, Louisiana ranks 14th nationally with a 69 percent positive ROI value, placing the state in the top three among SEC states. The positive ROI value for each state represents the estimated percentage of public postsecondary graduates whose earnings premium over high school graduates is enough to repay their total cost of a degree within ten years.

Expanded work-based learning experiences and high-quality opportunities are embedded in the state’s higher education master plan, Louisiana Prospers.

The Task Force is co-chaired Louisiana Commissioner of Higher Education Dr. Kim Hunter Reed and Louisiana Works Secretary Susie Schowen. Its membership includes state education leaders, legislators, workforce and economic development agencies, higher education systems, business and industry organizations, regional economic partners, and student representatives from all four public postsecondary systems.

“We fix Louisiana by putting people into good high-paying jobs,” said Secretary Schowen. “We improve education outcomes by the very fact that we are stabilizing families and improving outcomes across the board.”

“We want to keep Louisiana’s talent here at home,” said Commissioner Reed. “Thanks to the work of Strada and our partnership with Louisiana Works, we are strengthening our strategies to ensure our students successfully transition from college to meaningful employment right here in Louisiana,” said Commissioner Reed.

In 2024, Strada awarded Regents with a $400,000 grant to support the Louisiana Work-Based Learning Study, a multi-year research project that will provide proof of concept for work-based learning best practices that lead to student success and prosperity. This initiative embeds work-based learning experiences into curricula and develops incentives for institutions to participate through the state’s funding formula. Louisiana Works aligns fields of study with workforce needs and improves student career exploration and navigation.

Louisiana has made progress in increasing educational attainment, reaching 52.5% of working-age adults holding a postsecondary credential, but continued advancement, including keeping our credential earners in Louisiana jobs, depends on stronger connections between credentials and careers.

Also testifying in the Senate Education Committee in support of today’s legislation was Board Chair Misti S. Cordell, Barry Erwin with Leaders for a Better Louisiana and Mary Beth Derrickson with the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI).

The next meeting of the Task Force on Career Alignment will be held on Tuesday, June 16, at the Claiborne Building.