Education beyond high school has never been more important than it is today — for individual citizens and for American society as a whole.

Some type of postsecondary education will be crucial for virtually every person who seeks mean-ingful work, participatory citizenship and personal fulfillment in the 21st century.

Yet many Americans face formidable barriers to an education beyond high school. As the report on the following pages so aptly points out: There’s not enough money, and money’s not enough. During the last decade, an estimated 1 million low-income, academically qualified students failed to attend college due in some part to financial need. Additional barriers may include inadequate academic preparation, insufficient information about available options in postsecondary education, and a lack of personal aspiration, encouragement or support.

The work of Lumina Foundation for Education focuses on students who traditionally have been underserved by higher education: students from low-income families, first generation college students, students of color and adult learners. Thus, this inaugural issue of Lumina Foundation Focus tells the stories of students who face these challenges. In this issue, which features the work of noted higher education writer Alvin P. Sanoff, you’ll read about students such as Rosa Iona of Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., a Dominican immigrant who is preparing to enter college this fall; Roxanne Godding, a talented urban teen who turned down the chance to attend a prestigious private university in Massachusetts for fear of loan debt; and Aaron Pennington of Indianapolis, an adult student who holds down a full-time third-shift job while pursuing a full course load at a downtown campus. The real-life stories of these students — and the insights offered by many of the nation’s foremost experts in higher education access, success and financial aid — highlight this first issue of Lumina Foundation Focus. We hope this publication deepens the understanding of the factors affecting postsecondary access and therefore aids efforts to help more underserved students obtain an education beyond high school.

Lumina Foundation joins other organizations — educational, governmental and private — in supporting families and communities as they seek to raise aspirations, improve preparation and provide the encouragement students need to enter and succeed in post-secondary education. By helping to remove the barriers to postsecondary access and success, we hope to open doors of opportunity — both to benefit individual students such as Rosa, Roxanne and Aaron and to help build a society in which all people can reach their potential.

Martha D. Lamkin
President and CEO, Lumina Foundation for Education