Hi @lhubbard think if you use the “Custom Selection” option you can add both courses and learning plans + categories.

ok, so for that I have to select the specific learning plans. I can’t select learning plans by category, or all...right?

When I tried that, it didn’t assign the learning plans. In fact it wiped out all of the assignments.

Think it depends open how you are using your categories...You should test and see if you add both courses and LPs to same the category and then assign that category to the PU they may have the access you're looking for…??

Ummm, Learning Plans map to categories?? Where?

Learning plans are not assigned to categories.

Still, using the Custom option, as @lrnlab suggested, I’m able to assign both categories and learning plans to a power user.

There is some discrepancy in the UI, as after the first assignment, on the categories tab, you will see  checkboxes and will be able to edit categories your selection, while on the Learning Plans tab, the already assigned learning plans are hidden, so you can only add additional ones.

To remove a learning plan, you need to unassigned it on the Assigned Resources list.

So even though all courses require a category, and courses are in Learning Plans… if we assign Power Users to Categories it does not capture the Learning Plans because we do not assign those to Categories, just the courses inside the Learning Plan are assigned… so of the hundreds of Learning Plans, we still have to extract what belongs where or select ALL for our Power Users to access them.  
Is there a way to:

1.  Require assigning a Learning Plan to a Category, or 
2.  Auto assign the Learning Plan to whatever category(ies) courses are inside it?