Navigating the Emerging 2025 Political Landscape

The Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) recently brought together Fortune 500 companies and college leaders who share a commitment to higher education as America’s leading solution for hiring and training America’s workforce. Our network is focused on anticipating, navigating, and influencing the 2025 policy landscape and its impact on workforce development and business-higher education partnerships. Most importantly, we focus on how these entities can collaborate through BHEF to influence the implementation of 2025 workforce and higher education initiatives. Key themes that were shared across the business and education community include:

Immigration policy and its impact on both business and higher education. Business and higher education leaders are concerned about workforce shortages and the ability to remain competitive amid critical skill gaps. While domestic partnerships play a vital role in training American workers, immigration policies remain essential for filling specialized, high-demand roles. Higher education leaders underscored the risk of losing international graduate students, who contribute significantly to U.S. innovation and workforce development.

An opportunity for data transparency investments and policy alignment. While both business and higher education agreed that a focus on program outcomes is important, they pointed to challenges in accessing and integrating workforce and education data as a key concern. Employers and educators called for unified, transparent data systems to track learner and program outcomes, inform policy, and align investments with workforce needs. For example, the Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act and National Apprenticeship Act both have strong bipartisan support and far-reaching data systems. Yet, policymakers and executives in the field remain concerned that these fragmented data systems cloud policymakers’ ability to see how business and higher education are driving positive outcomes in line with those policies. These systems also limit the ability of business, education, regional, and state leaders to make informed decisions about how to move quickly to build programs and pathways that align to emerging labor shortages and needs.

Regional partnerships and AI integration. Regional business-higher education collaborations drive economic growth, with our network highlighting efforts from New York City to San Diego to Texas to Washington State to Iowa. Leaders emphasized how AI continues to reshape local job markets in unique ways, increasing demand for AI skills in nearly every industry and, most importantly, the need for national and regional intermediaries to help create consistent quality of training for technical, ethical, and durable (or “common”) skills in AI-impacted jobs. Business and higher education executives reaffirmed their desire and belief that they are major drivers in the United States’ position as a global leader in AI-driven workforce development, but are concerned that not funding and fostering regional tech-based collaborations will put America at risk of falling behind globally, creating vulnerabilities across cybersecurity, energy, and the economy.

Thank you to key contributors for sharing their time and insights: Donald McIntosh, Vice President of Education & Workforce, Business Roundtable, Annelies Goger, Fellow, Brookings Metro, and Tom Harnisch, Vice President, Government Relations, State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO).

If you’re interested in advocating and supporting the role business-higher education partnerships play in driving American economic competitiveness and access to high-quality jobs, we invite you to ?engage with us in three ways:?

1. Add a success story. BHEF highlights and shares examples of successful business-higher education partnerships that strengthen the workforce. Amplify your stories of the power of business-higher education partnerships to uniquely showcase the combined power of effective national, regional, and sector-based collaboration models that support talent development for the U.S. economy.
2. Connect across government affairs teams. Organizations working on talent solutions can strengthen advocacy efforts by connecting their policy teams with BHEF. We are often asked by partners to identify business and higher education leaders interested in advocating for good policy, awareness campaigns, and case studies. Engaging with BHEF’s network ensures business and higher education leaders have a voice in workforce policy discussions.
3. Join BHEF. A coordinated effort among business and higher education leaders remains critical as workforce and education policies and solutions evolve. With a presence in Washington, D.C., and across the country, BHEF provides the network and expertise needed to advance high-impact partnerships. BHEF’s network—spanning a diverse range of corporate and higher education innovators—is built on a shared dedication to challenging the status quo to drive better outcomes. If you and your organization share this drive, consider joining BHEF as an institutional member to engage more closely with a growing network of innovators, disruptors, and leaders.

For more information, to share a success story, or express your interest in engaging with us, contact Frank Avery at [email protected].

Strong business-higher education partnerships will continue to shape the future of the workforce and economy. We look forward to collaborating with our members and strategic partners to effectively deliver results.