In January 2026, the U.S. Department of Education released a notice for a state-led national challenge regarding capacity-building initiatives designed to strengthen the connections between learners and earners by accelerating the development of integrated, state-wide Talent Marketplaces.
A Talent Marketplace, as defined for this challenge, and by the U.S. Department of Education, is a public digital system that helps connect people’s skills and credentials to education and job opportunities. It brings together learning and employment records (LERs), a credential registry, and skills-based job description generators. Using artificial intelligence, the system allows individuals and employers to securely share, understand, and use skills and achievements to support training and career advancement.  Â
Eligible applicants for the CTO Challenge are Governors of a State, who must commit to working collaboratively and ensuring the inclusion of the State’s Perkins agency, Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) agency, State Workforce Agencies and the State Workforce Board. Information on the Connecting Talent to Opportunity (CTO) Challenge can be found online at https://www.cto-challenge.com/. Â
Through our open technologies, the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL) and the Credential Registry, Credential Engine directly supports the creation of credential registries and LERs. Credential Engine encourages everyone to use this opportunity to advance their credential transparency work by including in their proposals that they are, or will work with us, use structured, open, linked data structures (CTDL) to ensure interoperability, and incorporate our technologies to build state-based registries to support their talent marketplaces.
CTO Challenge submissions are due April 30, 2026. Please see the link above for more information.
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Also in January 2026, the U.S. Department of Education also announced the applicants selected for the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education – Special Projects (FIPSE) grants. Twenty-two grants were given to support high-quality, short-term programs via talent marketplaces and credential registries. These included institutions in several of our partner states:
- California: West Valley College, California Baptist College
- Colorado: Colorado Mesa University
- Illinois: Community College District 502 (College of DuPage)
- Michigan: Southeast Michigan Community Alliance, Michigan State University
- North Dakota: University of North Dakota
- New York: Research Foundation of CUNY (LaGuardia Community College)
- Nevada: Truckee Meadows Community College
- Tennessee: Meharry Medical College
- Texas: Temple College, University of Texas Permian Basin
- Washington: South Seattle College
- Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin System (UW Stout)
By incorporating Credential Engine’s services, higher education institutions can more effectively build systems that are sustainable and scalable to align high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand industry sectors or occupations to the education and training pathways available to learners. If you are a partner in one of the FIPSE awardees (listed above) please let us know how we can support your work.