The rate of college attainment is improving across America but not fast enough to meet future workforce needs, while educational achievement gaps by race, income, and other socioeconomic factors persist, a report from the Lumina Foundation finds.

According to the report, A Stronger Nation Through Higher Education (218 pages, PDF), 38.7 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 64 in 2011 had a two- or four-year college degree, up from 38.3 percent in 2010 and 38.1 percent in 2009. However, the rate of improvement in degree attainment is insufficient to meet Goal 2025, the foundation's aspirational goal to boost the percentage of Americans with a college degree to 60 percent by 2025.

The report also found that while 59.1 percent of Asian Americans and 43.3 percent of whites had a two- or four-year college degree, only 27.1 percent of African Americans, 23 percent of Native Americans, and 19.3 of Latinos did. Moreover, the data revealed a widening racial/ethnic gap in attainment rates among Americans between the ages of 25 and 29, with Asian Americans having the highest rate (65.6 percent), followed by whites (44.9 percent), African Americans (24.7 percent), Latinos (17.9 percent), and Native Americans (16.9 percent).

The report, which includes state profiles and rankings of metropolitan areas by degree attainment rates, outlines ten so-called achievement targets that will guide Lumina's work over the next three years. They include raising the percentage of students pursuing postsecondary education directly from high school to 67.8 percent, up from 62.5 percent in 2012; enrolling 3.3 million Latino students and 3.25 million African-American students in college, up from 2.5 million and 2.7 million, respectively; and boosting the six-year college completion rate to 60 percent from 54 percent.

"Our pace of attainment has been too slow and America is now facing a troubling talent gap," said Lumina Foundation president and CEO Jamie P. Merisotis. "If we intend to address this problem, new strategies are required and a heightened sense of urgency is needed among policy makers, business leaders, and higher education institutions across our nation."