The challenge: To maintain an internationally competitive work force, Maryland aims to increase the share of its adult population that holds at least an associate degree from 44% to 55% by 2025. To achieve this goal, the state must improve the performance of its higher education system, ameliorating its weaknesses and building on its strengths. The bottom line: Maryland’s higher education system is leaving poor, urban, black, Hispanic and native-born Marylanders behind. But a strong record of marshaling resources to achieve higher education goals and the state’s relative wealth put Maryland in a good position to do something about this problem, if it so chooses. Disciplines Accessibility | Education | Higher Education This report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/323 Much Accomplished, Much at Stake: Performance and Policy in Maryland Higher Education Executive Summary Laura Perna and Joni Finney University of Pennsylvania, Institute for Research on Higher Education Patrick Callan National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education