Lumina Foundation is working to increase the share of adults in the U.S. labor force with college degrees or other credentials of value leading to economic prosperity.
On the morning of Thursday, July 31, James B. Milliken was enjoying a round of golf at the remote Sand Hills club in Western Nebraska when his cellphone buzzed. Milliken was still days away from taking the helm of the sprawling University of California system, but his new office was on the line with disturbing news: The Trump administration was freezing hundreds of millions of dollars of research funding at the University of California, Los Angeles, UC’s biggest campus. Milliken quickly packed up and made the five-hour drive to Denver to catch the next flight to California.
Little did he know, but Milliken had just landed on the front lines of one of the most confounding cultural battles waged by the Trump administration.
The year 2025 will be remembered as a watershed moment for American higher education—a year when decades of mounting pressures exploded into a crisis that forced institutions to fundamentally reconsider their missions, operations, and very survival.
From unprecedented federal interventions to accelerating college closures, the sector faced challenges on multiple fronts that left administrators scrambling, faculty demoralized, and students caught in the crossfire. Moving forward, higher education leaders are assessing the damage and contemplating an uncertain future fundamentally different from the past.
When students in Catherine Hartmann’s honors seminar at the University of Wyoming took their final exams this month, they encountered a testing method as old as the ancient philosophers whose ideas they were studying. For 30 minutes, each student sat opposite Hartmann in her office. Hartmann asked probing questions. The student answered.
Hartmann is not alone in turning to a decidedly old-fashioned way to grade student performance. Across the country, a small but growing number of educators are experimenting with oral exams to circumvent the temptations presented by powerful artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT.
When Harmony Simpson graduated from high school in 2019, she was well aware that she lacked the financial means to attend a four-year university and was determined to steer clear of debt. She vividly remembers discussing post-high school options with her peers.
Simpson decided to enroll anyway. She recalled that consequential decision as one of five panelists discussing the value of higher education at a recent online roundtable. While acknowledging that long-standing concerns about college debt and newer fears about artificial intelligence deter some prospective college students, the panelists defended the benefits of college, financially and otherwise.
Workforce Pell represents one of the most significant shifts in federal financial aid policy in over fifty years. For the first time, Pell Grants will be available for limited, career-focused training programs, including non-credit offerings as brief as eight weeks. This expansion has the potential to reshape workforce training and strengthen the role of community colleges in meeting rapidly evolving labor market needs.
Yet, many states already operate their own financial aid programs designed to support short-term workforce training. What remains unclear is how these state programs will interact with, complement, or potentially conflict with the rollout of the Workforce Pell program.
Colorado has no shortage of postsecondary training and education options, including universities, community colleges, workforce centers, occupational schools, vocational training, and hundreds of apprenticeships. But finding the best option can be difficult. The state has 20 different offices in seven different agencies that oversee more than 100 postsecondary education and training programs, and they all have their own measures of success.
Now, the governor is calling for a structural transformation to replace the Department of Higher Education.
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