Executive Directive 2025-2: Ensuring Access to Postsecondary Opportunities

To reach our goals, I have signed bipartisan budgets to fund programs like Michigan Reconnect and the Michigan Achievement Scholarship. These initiatives lower the cost of higher education for hundreds of thousands of people and put them on tuition-free paths to college or skills certificates that lead to good-paying jobs. Currently more than 207,000 people have signed up for Michigan Reconnect, allowing them to work toward an associate’s degree or skills certificate at community and Tribal colleges without worrying about how to pay for tuition. More than 56,000 Michigan college students are taking advantage of the Michigan Achievement Scholarship for continuing education.

Creating good-paying jobs for Michiganders has also been a focus. Since I took office, our efforts have created tens of thousands of training opportunities through the expansion of the GoingPro Talent Fund, launch of the M3 Initiative to prepare Michiganders for critical maritime industrial jobs, creation of the EV Workforce Hub to prepare Michiganders for the jobs of the future, and establishment of the Semiconductor Talent Action Team.  We have invested tens of millions of dollars in barrier removal to enable Michiganders who have undertaken training opportunities to complete their training and gain successful employment.

However, not all Michiganders are taking equal advantage of these programs. In particular, young men across Michigan are falling behind. In 2024, 67% of enrollees in Michigan Reconnect were women. Overall, 72% of individuals who have earned a degree or certificate through Reconnect are women.1 The discrepancies in Michigan mirror national trends. In 2023, 55.3% of women nationwide held an associate’s degree or higher, while only 44.3% of men had reached the same level of education.2 And while 66% of women who recently graduated high school enrolled in some form of college in 2022, only 57.2% of men did the same.3 Just as race, national origin, and sexual orientation should not be a barrier to opportunity, sex and gender should not determine what is possible for a Michigander.

My administration is working for a Michigan in which everyone can succeed. Ensuring that we reach the populations who are disconnected from state programs is critical. These programs provide pathways to good-paying jobs, enable economic mobility, support family formation, and capitalize on Michigan’s greatest strength: its people. We are working for shared prosperity, and that means finding ways to ensure all Michiganders have the tools they need to take advantage of increasing opportunity in our state.

Section 1 of article 5 of the Michigan Constitution of 1963 vests the executive power of the State of Michigan in the governor.

Section 8 of article 5 of the Michigan Constitution of 1963 places each principal department under the supervision of the governor.

Acting under the Michigan Constitution of 1963 and Michigan law, I direct the following:

Reaching All Michiganders Eligible for Postsecondary Programs

1. Within ninety days of this order, the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential (MiLEAP) and the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) must review their programming related to job training and post-secondary educational opportunities, including their means of raising awareness about the existence of those programs.

2. Where there are discrepancies in participation rates among communities, MiLEAP and LEO must work to reach communities who are underrepresented in job training and post-secondary education and ensure that members of those communities are aware of and have access to the available opportunities.

3. All departments and agencies shall coordinate and cooperate with MiLEAP and LEO in executing the duties outlined by this directive.

This directive is effective immediately.

Thank you for your cooperation in its implementation.