To support independent, policy-oriented journalism about issues vital to creating a better-educated country.

To support independent, policy-oriented journalism about issues vital to creating a better-educated country.

To support independent, cutting-edge, policy-oriented journalism about issues vital to increasing educational attainment beyond high school.

As headlines about higher education go, this has to be one of the most clever: “Highbrow Robbery: The Colleges Call It Tuition, We Call It Plunder.” The opening line was: “Everybody seems to agree these days that college costs too much.” The date of the story, from one of my back issues of the excellent Washington Monthly magazine: 1983.

For 13 years, Washington Monthly has ranked colleges on metrics such as social mobility, research, and public service, instead of exclusivity and prestige. This year’s report includes a first-ever ranking of America’s best colleges for vocational certificates. View the report’s complete rankings here.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal agency created in 1935 to address the nation’s then-worst economic catastrophe, is getting a fresh look as we think about how to help millions of Americans left jobless in the pandemic. There’s a good reason for why. During its eight-year tenure, the WPA put more than eight million Americans to work on more than a million projects of public interest. These federal workers built roads and dams and electrified rural communities long-denied that necessity of modern life. Others were put to work creating public spaces, public art, and swelling the ranks of crucial service-sector jobs.

PRESIDENT AND CEO Jamie Merisotis Follow on Twitter Contact Jamie Merisotis Connect on LinkedIn Jamie Merisotis is a globally recognized leader in philanthropy, education, and public policy.  Since 2008, he has served as president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, an independent, private foundation that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available […]

Jamie Merisotis is president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all.

Kevin Corcoran leads Lumina Foundation’s strategic communications team. Before assuming this role in late 2016, he spent eight years overseeing design and policy work that promoted development of new higher education business and finance models. His areas of expertise include competency-based learning, state authorization of online degree programs, and outcomes-based funding.

The U.S. is making slow, but steady progress in the number of Americans who hold high-quality credentials beyond high school diplomas. New data on nationwide postsecondary attainment released today by Lumina Foundation in its latest A Stronger Nation report indicates that 40.4 percent of working-age Americans (ages 25-64) held high-quality two- or four-year degrees in 2014, the latest U.S. Census Bureau (American Community Survey) figures available, up slightly from 40.0 percent in 2013.