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.
In January, devastating California wildfires forced area colleges and universities, such as Pepperdine, UCLA, Pasadena City College, and Caltech, to close, cancel events, or provide shelter. One month later, the Senate confirmed Linda McMahon, the former head of World Wrestling Entertainment, as Secretary of Education. Later in the year, the House narrowly passed the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” Act, which levied new taxes on colleges, capped graduate student loans, and expanded the Pell Grant to workforce training programs, among other things.
This photo essay provides a snapshot of the most consequential people, places, and events that challenged higher education in 2025.
It’s tough to go back to school in your 40s. But with layoffs, stagnant pay, and inroads by artificial intelligence, many of those nearing midlife are heading back to classrooms and trade schools.
Some are making radical career changes, going from chef to software engineer. Others are getting higher degrees to stand out from peers as qualification standards intensify. Some who skipped college after high school return to the classroom because they can’t get top jobs without degrees.
The University of Austin set a lofty goal: fix higher education by creating a new institution where civil discourse and open inquiry would be prized above all else. Free from the norms and anxieties that its founders believed had crippled mainstream higher education, UATX would serve as a shining example that would help set the sector back on its true, original path.
As the year comes to a close, many of the people who helped get the new venture off the ground have left the university. Though the institution continues to rake in big donations and has enrolled its second class, questions are beginning to swirl about what caused the exodus.
The year 2025 brought profound losses to the higher education community, as several pioneering scholars whose work advanced diversity, equity, and academic excellence passed away.
These educators, including the founding director of Harvard University’s groundbreaking Hip Hop Archive and a Pulitzer Prize-winning Native American author-professor, created pathways for future generations and dramatically changed their disciplines. Their legacies endure through the countless lives they touched, the institutions they transformed, and the knowledge they produced.
It's finals week at many colleges, which means a stressful time for students across the country. To make matters worse, two in five students face food insecurity, according to Swipe Out Hunger. The rising cost of groceries makes this reality even more challenging.
With the holidays approaching, it's also students' last chance to secure anything they might need from their school's food pantry before campus closes for winter break. Students at Penn State Harrisburg share how they are coping and what their campus is doing to ensure they have enough to eat.
Americans’ belief in the importance of college has changed over the last 15 years, but it remains a powerful driver of upward mobility. A typical college graduate earns 75 percent more than they would if they had only a high school diploma. Even so, only half of low-income students attend college, compared with 90 percent of their wealthier peers.
OneGoal is trying to close that gap. Its classes have served more than 30,000 students, and 80 percent of its graduates enroll in college or vocational school. To help students stay enrolled, OneGoal offers support throughout the first year of college.
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