Jamie P. Merisotis

Jamie P. Merisotis has served as president and CEO of Lumina Foundation for Education since January 1, 2008.

Long a champion of the idea that higher education enhances both society and individuals, Merisotis has worked for decades to increase educational opportunity among low-income, minority and other historically underrepresented populations.

At Lumina, Merisotis is continuing that effort by employing a strategic, outcomes-based approach in pursuing the Foundation's mission of expanding college access and success. Under his leadership, Lumina has embraced an ambitious and specific goal: to ensure that, by 2025, 60 percent of Americans have high quality two-year or four-year degrees—up from the current level of 39 percent. It is Merisotis' aim that all of Lumina's efforts and activities—grant making, communication, evaluation, policy advocacy and convening—work toward achieving that goal.

Merisotis is an expert on a wide range of higher-education issues. He is well versed in domestic and international issues related to higher-education opportunity and access, including student financial aid, minority-serving colleges and universities, global higher-education policy strategies, and social and economic benefits of higher education. He is recognized as an authority on college and university financing and has published major studies and reports on topics ranging from higher-education rankings to technology-based learning.

Before joining Lumina Foundation, Merisotis was founding president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Founded in Washington, D.C., in 1993, IHEP is an independent, non-partisan organization regarded as one of the world's premier higher-education research and policy centers. While at IHEP, Merisotis helped establish the Alliance for Equity in Higher Education, an unprecedented coalition of national associations whose members represent more than 350 minority-serving institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions.

Merisotis also managed IHEP's global efforts to leverage the social and economic effects of higher education, especially in southern Africa, the former Soviet Union and other developing areas. In 2006, he helped establish the Global Center on Private Financing of Higher Education, an IHEP initiative to address the growing role of private financing in expanding access to postsecondary education around the world. Additionally, Merisotis oversaw the Institute's work on college and university ranking systems, policy leadership development and other areas with cross-national implications.