In February, the entire education program joined practitioners, educators, and other funders at Achieving The Dream's (ATD) annual DREAM conference in Orlando, Florida. ATD's annual signature event brings together thousands of practitioners from hundreds of community colleges to exchange evidence-based approaches to promoting student success and equity. The Kresge Foundation has sponsored the participation of a delegation of South African higher education stakeholders for many years.
This year, Simphiwe Kunene, a South African student representing the University of the Free State, was selected as one of eight ATD university students to study alongside community college leaders and have their voices heard. Hearing Simphiwe share his story and contribute to the learning panel was inspiring and served as a stark reminder of the importance of Kresge's work in South Africa and the impact of sharing success more globally. I did.
In 2023, Kresge has committed to expanding the impact of South Africa's student success initiative Siyapumelera to up to 20 of South Africa's 26 universities. We also announced that we are exploring an anchoring approach for South African universities to strengthen local neighborhoods, make campuses more energy efficient and work with local communities to provide job skills and employment. We look forward to announcing new partners in the near future.
In the meantime, I would like to highlight the education team's main goals for our 100th anniversary in 2024.
Execute your HBCU strategy. Mr. Kresge has a long history of working with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). In the coming months, he will announce a new approach to engaging with HBCUs and will share grant updates throughout the year. We also look forward to working with other programs across the Foundation to support the efforts of HBCUs.
Start Shapmelera 3.0. We plan to announce up to 20 new grants to Syapumerea by May 2024 and begin our continued commitment to the Anchor Strategy. In addition to the grant award, we plan to convene Syapmelera grantees in June 2024 and our fast-growing Anchor partners in late 2024.
Support efforts to eliminate racially sensitive admissions practices. In 2022, we began funding initiatives aimed at responding to the potential end of affirmative action. Going forward, we will develop monitoring efforts to quantify declines in diversity at selected institutions, research on the consequences of decisions, and institutional approaches to preserving student diversity and opportunities for underrepresented students. We want to help you succeed.
Supporting student voices through civic engagement and voter outreach. As part of our desire to support student voices in higher education and our work generally, we have provided funding to support student civic engagement and student voting efforts since 2012 . This activity will continue in his 2024 year as well.
To enter the middle class in the 21st century and meet the needs of a modern economy, Americans need post-secondary education credentials. When Mr. Kresge started working in his field of access and success in 2008, the postsecondary attainment rate in the United States was 38%. As of 2022, the postsecondary attainment rate in the United States is 54.3%. This is an amazing and unknown success. But capital inequality persists, and economists predict that the U.S. economy will require 70% of all adults to have a degree by 2027.
There is still much work to be done to close the gap and ensure that every American who wants a higher education or higher credential can get one.
