David Croom

David Croom is assistant director for postsecondary achievement and innovation of Ascend at the Aspen Institute. Prior to Ascend, David was HBCU Lead and Higher Education Designer at Education Design Lab, and served as a strategy officer in Lumina Foundation for four years where he focused on advancing federal policy and pursuing issues pertaining to postsecondary finance, both toward the goal of increased attainment of high-quality credentials. Before Lumina, he was a policy analyst focused on federal postsecondary education in ACT’s office of strategic initiatives and spent time working at nonprofit PolicyLink with their California Boys and Men of Color Initiative. His first foray into federal policy was as congressional aide to Congresswoman Maxine Waters. David holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and a bachelor’s degree from MIT’s Sloan School of Management with a minor in political science.

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