About 39 percent of American adults hold a two- or four-year degree, and a shortage of 16 million adults is predicted in the workforce by 2025 — problems the Lumina Foundation is addressing state-by-state. The Lumina Foundation, an Indianpolis-based private foundation, is advocating for state and federal government to protect higher education and is offering to work with the government to accomplish that goal. The foundation’s big goal, “A Stronger Nation through Higher Education,” is to increase the number of Americans with college degrees to 60 percent by 2025. Education is a major driver for the economy, said Dewayne Matthews, Lumina foundation vice president of policy and strategy. “States need to think in terms of their human resources,” Matthews said. He defined human resources as the educated work force.The Lumina Foundation is looking for efficient ways for states to avoid cutting higher education budgets, Matthews said. While states are facing more pressure to cut budgets, it’s essential for higher education to be accessible to people, he said. In Louisiana, 24 percent of the state’s 2.3 million working-age adults hold at least a two-year degree, according to the Census 2000 data. In East Baton Rouge parish, 38.4 percent hold a two- or four-year degree.The foundation is advocating three major areas where states can help reach the goal of increasing the level of graduates, Matthews said. Preparing people before they go to college, ensuring students are financially prepared to succeed and making sure the hiring system is efficient will help accomplish the goal, he said. The organization wrote a report giving specific recommendations to states on how to protect higher education, Matthews said.”Protect [a state’s] financial aid programs,” he said. “That can have a devastating effect on people who are going to college.” President Obama has addressed the issue of higher education needs by funding more student loans. Obama is receiving some opposition for his plan to return to a system of funding student loans through federal government, said Robert Mann, mass communication professor.The system would eliminate the “middle man” for funding student loans, Mann explained. To reach the foundation’s goal to fill the needs for college graduates, nearly 800,000 more college graduates need to be educated each year until 2025, the Lumina Foundation reported. There are no easy solutions, Matthews said, but states can at least learn to minimize the damage from budget cuts to higher education to increase college graduates.  Obama’s budget proposes all new student loans originate in the Direct Student Loan program starting in 2010, according to the Committee on Education and Labor’s Web site. –Contact Joy Lukachick at [email protected]