Policy Advisor
Grace works as the Policy Advisor for Workforce and Postsecondary Education at Texas 2036. Her work focuses on workforce development, postsecondary education, and advanced learning opportunities that begin in high school, including dual credit. She places particular emphasis on strengthening the connection between education outcomes and Texas’ evolving workforce needs.
The first two blogs in this series examined why Texas is considering performance-based funding for public universities and what outcomes a new model could reward. But creating a new set of incentives raises another question: Where will the money come from? That question remains closely tied to an existing source of state support known as…
The first blog in this series examined why Texas is considering performance-based funding for public universities and how other states have approached it. The next question is more concrete: What would Texas actually pay universities to achieve? At its core, the proposal would give universities additional state funding based on how well they help students…
Texas has been steadily moving toward tying higher education funding to student results rather than to enrollment alone. In 2023, the Legislature passed House Bill 8, which overhauled how the state funds community colleges by rewarding outcomes such as credentials of value, transfer to four-year institutions and dual credit completion. During the 2025 legislative session,…
Each year, the Texas Workforce Commission publishes the Self-Sufficient Wage for Texas, a county-by-county estimate of the income a working family needs to cover its basic costs without public or private assistance. The 2026 numbers are out, and they tell a fairly straightforward story: the cost of getting by in Texas continues to climb, driven…
Note: This is Part 3 of a series on Texas 2036’s Earned but Not Awarded report. The first two posts in this series focused on who Texas’ Potential Completers are and how close many came to earning a credential. This final post examines what happens after these students leave college and outlines policy approaches that respond…
Note: This is Part 2 of a series on Texas 2036’s Earned but Not Awarded report. In the first post in this series, we introduced Texas’ Potential Completers and identified why recognizing their progress matters for the state’s attainment goals. To understand the opportunity they represent, it helps to take a closer look at how these…