America needs clear paths to learning and success after high school that make the nation stronger and meet the needs of today’s student.

No matter where you come from, what you look like, or how much money your family has, you should have what you need to learn, grow, and thrive. Read more about Lumina’s Commitment to Racial Equity.

Lumina Foundation works in partnership with education and business leaders, civil rights organizations, policymakers, and individuals who want to reimagine how and where learning occurs.

AREAS OF FOCUS

Featured Video
The US is falling behind in higher education. Can we turn the tide?
Who are today's higher education students? They might not be exactly who you think. About 40% of today’s students work full time, while another 40% are at least 25 years old, with many coming from low-income families.
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Featured Video
Are robots really taking our jobs?
Are the robots coming for our jobs? Not for those with the training and skills needed in today’s economy. And in nearly all cases, that means the people with education beyond high school.
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Today’s Indigenous students choose their own paths to college success
Triston Black and Harley Interpreter, both members of the Navajo Nation and both affiliated with Diné College, the tribal college on reservation land in Tsaile, Arizona. They arrived at Diné along separate paths, but each is committed to helping the Navajo people build a better life—Black as a high school teacher, and Interpreter by improving mental health treatment on the reservation by working to “decolonize” the field of psychology.
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Focus magazine: Fall 2021
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Justice for Today's Students
Policies, practices, and beliefs—rooted in history and still affecting people today—keep many Black, Native American, and Hispanic people from the education and skills they need.
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Our commitment to racial equity
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Lumina wants to ensure quality education for all Americans.
Find out how Lumina's efforts support the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal of Quality Education.
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Learn More About Lumina

The Nation’s Progress

The United States faces an urgent and growing need for talent. Many more people of all races, ethnicities, ages, and income levels will need college degrees, certificates, industry certifications, and other credentials of value to join or remain in the middle class.

Success Stories

Navajo student Triston Black stands behind a livestock fence facing the camera.
Focus Magazine
Students at Diné College find relevance on the rez
Triston Black had the world at his feet. As a senior at Navajo Preparatory School in Farmington, New Mexico, scholarships and enrollment incentives were pouring in from across the country as colleges and universities were hoping to recruit him.
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Focus Magazine
Menominee equips warriors for the fight to save the Earth
Jasmine Neosh had arrived at an inflection point. In the fall of 2016, the Menominee tribal member was waiting tables and tending bar at an upscale Chicago eatery as the protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline grew into a full-blown crisis in the northern Plains.
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Lisa Dirks
Focus Magazine
Alaska-born Native scholar works to reorient research
In the early 2010s, Lisa Dirks was visiting her relatives in Alaska when she noticed an article in the Aleut Corporation newsletter on their dining room table: an item that looked like a research article. As a scholar, researcher, and tribal member, she was curious about its contents, so she picked it up and began…
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Featured News
Two graduates walking up stairs in cap and gown.
May 10, 2022
Veering Off-Track: ‘Some college, no degree’ numbers spike to 39 million
By Courtney Brown
Like a freight train speeding down the tracks, this alarming trend is moving fast—but in the wrong direction. America’s “some college, no degree” (SCND) population—those who started at a 2-year or 4-year college and stopped out before completing a degree or certificate—has grown to 39 million people, up nearly 9 percent in just two years.
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Featured News
This dude's looking confident AF walking through revolving glass doors, carrying a couriers bag and blue shoes that match his shirt.
May 9, 2022
Adults can return to college, finish, and thrive—with a little support
By Frank Swanzy Essien, Jr.
Most adults who return to college can persevere and graduate—if they have enough time and financial support, a new report shows. Nearly three-quarters of the returning adults surveyed earned a postsecondary credential, and most who hadn’t still planned to do so. 
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Featured News
Dakota Pawlicki on the set of Today's Students, Tomorrow's Talent
April 26, 2022
The Power of State Networks
By Dakota Pawlicki
Aligning the work of state agencies, colleges, universities, community organizations, and philanthropy towards common goals takes trust, a neutral intermediary, and a focus on what is best for students. State-level networks across the country are leading efforts to make their state’s education and workforce systems better.
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Featured News
April 21, 2022
Time to weigh in: IPEDS could restrict the race and ethnicity reporting of undocumented students
By Chris Mullin
Freedom gives us, as Americans, the power to choose. It makes our form of government unique in several practical ways. One is the opportunity to create and own our own identity, a practice praised by rugged individualists and inclusivity activists alike.
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Featured News
April 20, 2022
College is worth it, but stress and finances hold students back
By Courtney Brown
The numbers are staggering. Enrollment in colleges and universities fell by 938,000 students over the past two years. This enrollment plunge was largely due to people who decided college wasn’t worth it. Right?
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Featured News
An overworked, overtired woman in front of a laptop with her head in her hands.
April 20, 2022
Stress weighs heavily on those who remain in college, a new Gallup-Lumina study finds
Within the past six months, three-fourths of students in bachelor’s programs and two-thirds of adults seeking associate degrees who have considered taking a break from college cited emotional stress, according to a new Gallup-Lumina report.
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Featured News
Empty classroom
April 15, 2022
We can reverse the enrollment plunge to avoid the ‘permanent gap’ in U.S. education
By Courtney Brown
A drastic decline in the number of people going to college in the past two years threatens America’s economic health and is worsening the nation’s racial divide in educational achievement, experts on a Lumina webinar told us.
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