Prior to founding Cardona Solutions, Professor Miguel Cardona dedicated close to three decades serving the community as a teacher, award-winning school principal, district leader, Commissioner of Education for Connecticut, and U.S. Secretary of Education.
As the 12th U.S. Secretary of Education, Cardona focused on safely reopening and reimagining schools, overhauling higher education accountability, improving access and affordability to higher education, and providing upward economic mobility to more students across the country.
Cardona has been a featured speaker at UCLA, University of Texas, Austin, Yale, Harvard, and many other colleges and universities of all sizes across the country. He has partnered with the Brookings Institute, Newsweek, and TIME magazine to chronicle the importance of public education and bring much needed attention to the challenges facing our students at this critical time.
He currently serves on the boards of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz and the USC Schwarzenegger Institute of Policy. Cardona is a Resident Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and will be a fellow in the School of Management at Yale University in 2026.
He earned his Bachelor's degree from Central Connecticut State University, followed by his Master's, Professional and Executive Certifications, and Ed. D. from the University of Connecticut. Cardona was also awarded two Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Southern CT State University and Thaddues Stevens College in PA. Yet, his greatest accomplishment is the family he built with his wife, Marissa, an educator, and their two college-aged children.
