The geography of learning mobility

How the fifty states and the District of Columbia build the eight components of a trusted, portable, applied-learning system — institutions, systems and state policy mapped to where they act.

Lens

Activity

Maturity

Rendering the United States…

Smaller states & DC:

Gold-outlined states are documented in the L&A research corpus; others are characterized from public state transfer, credential and workforce policy. Maturity ratings are L&A inferences for orientation, not official scores. Boundaries: U.S. Census (us-atlas).

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Click a state on the map (or pick one below), choose an activity, and fill in the details. Saved entries write to the shared dataset that every visitor sees immediately. Export downloads the full dataset; Import merges a JSON file back in.

State Activity (component)

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Organization (state, system or institution)

Maturity

Evidence

Actor type Program / instrument Description Source / citation

State profile

Weighted maturity · non-credit emphasis

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Strongest activity: {{ panel.strongest }}

In L&A corpus

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Edited

Source: {{ e.source }}

No documented activity yet.

How to read this map

Select an activity to re-shade every state by how deeply it has built that component. Use the lens to isolate state-policy & governance action from system- or institution-led work. Click any state for its full profile.

The eight components are drawn from Governing Learning Mobility (L&A, June 2026): learning & employment records, learning assessment, learning equivalencies, program requirements, employer requirements, applicability & normalization, navigation, and governance & policy.

Cross-cutting national sources woven through the entries include the Education Commission of the States 50-State Comparisons (transfer & CPL), the ACE–CAEL 50-State CPL database, Credential Engine, and use cases from C-BEN, CAEL, Opportunity@Work, DXtera and Jobs for the Future.

The Overall view ranks states by a weighted maturity score that emphasizes non-credit learning mobility and weights credit transfer lower. Open Read Me (top right) for the full rubric, methodology and definitions.

Lynnerup & Ansell

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Lynnerup & Ansell · Read Me

The geography of learning mobility

An interactive map of how the fifty states and the District of Columbia are building a trusted, portable, applied-learning system. Each state is profiled across eight components of learning mobility; click any state for its full breakdown, with each activity attributed to the organization behind it, an evidence label, and a clickable source.

What you're looking at

The choropleth shades each state by maturity. Use the Activity tabs to re-shade by a single component, and the Lens to isolate state-policy & governance action from system- or institution-led work. Gold-outlined states are documented in the L&A research corpus; others are characterized from public policy and program sources.

The eight components

Non-credit emphasis (weighted higher): Learning & Employment Records · Learning Assessment (incl. prior learning) · Program Requirements (credential registries) · Employer Requirements (skills-based) · Applicability · Governance & Policy.

Credit mobility / transfer (kept, weighted lower): Learning Equivalencies (common course numbering, articulation) · Navigation (transfer tools). These remain in every profile but count less toward the score.

Maturity rubric — how the ranking works

The overall rating is not a raw activity count. Each component's depth (0–4) is multiplied by a weight, summed, and divided by the total weight to give a 0–4 weighted maturity score. The non-credit emphasis is built into the weights; breadth and depth both raise the score, while transfer-only strength does not.

Component weights

Learning & Employment Records1.5

Program Requirements1.4

Learning Assessment1.3

Employer Requirements1.3

Applicability · Governance1.0

Equivalencies · Navigation (credit)0.6

Score → rating

Leading2.5 – 4.0

Established1.8 – 2.5

Developing1.1 – 1.8

Emerging0.5 – 1.1

None< 0.5

Component depth scale (0–4): None · Emerging (pilot/announced) · Developing (live but uneven) · Established (statewide/system-wide, operating) · Leading (mature, interoperable, distinctive).

Evidence discipline

Every entry is labeled Fact (sourced/observed), Inference (reasoned from facts), or Assumption (judgment). Maturity ratings are L&A inferences for orientation, not official scores.

Sources

Sources in each profile are clickable. Cross-cutting references include the Education Commission of the States 50-State Comparisons, the ACE–CAEL CPL landscape, Credential Engine, and use cases from C-BEN, CAEL, Opportunity@Work and Jobs for the Future.

Editing

Editing is reserved for L&A staff. Click Admin (top right) and enter the editor password to enable editing, import and export for your session; saved entries write to the shared dataset every visitor sees.