Gretchen Schmidt, PhD

Gretchen Schmidt is a national leader in higher education transformation, focusing on issues of guided pathways and rural student success at NCII. Before joining NCII in 2020, Gretchen led the design and implementation of the American Association of Community Colleges Pathways Project 1.0 and 2.0 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Through that work she helped develop a national model for scaling guided pathways reform. She advises the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, the California Guided Pathways Project, Texas Pathways, Jobs for the Future’s Student Success Centers, the Gates Foundation’s Completion by Design, and the Lumina Foundation’s Beyond Financial Aid. Through these and other efforts, she has supported change work at hundreds of institutions through cohort-based projects and engaged in deep work via direct relationships with individual colleges.

Gretchen previously served as a program director for Jobs for the Future’s Postsecondary State Policy team and spent five years in the Virginia Community College System, first as educational policy director and then as assistant vice chancellor for academic and student services. She also staffed state college boards in Arizona and Virginia and taught in undergraduate- and graduate-level education programs.