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 its latest guidance on higher education reform, the conservative Heritage Foundation endorses the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to leverage executive power to overhaul the American higher education system by pushing colleges to comply with right-wing priorities and demanding accountability.
At the same time, it urges the White House to minimize federal oversight and focus instead on dismantling the U.S. Department of Education and shifting its duties to the states.
At Old Dominion University, a move to accelerate courses has divided the campus.
But the issues at play are not unique. Colleges nationwide are responding to pressures coming from all directions, including rapid changes in teaching and learning technologies, a decline in traditional-age college students, and losses of federal funding under the Trump administration. Higher education wasn’t built for speed, however, and shared-governance structures demand a slower pace of change. When threats loom, who decides how much faculty consultation is sufficient?
Workers across career stages, from early- to late-career, are turning to non-degree credentials (NDCs)—badges, certificates, certifications, and microcredentials—to complement formal education, validate their skills, and navigate a labor market where hiring systems struggle to infer capabilities from work experience alone.
For companies, the proliferation of credentials promises a flexible, skills-first future responsive to their needs. But for workers, the glut of NDCs presents a chaotic gamble. In a crowded, opaque, and largely unregulated market, workers often struggle to distinguish between a credential that truly benefits them and one that simply clogs their resume or consumes their time and resources.
The support that Kathy Cabrera Guaman received at Augsburg University is part of a surprisingly novel approach now being rolled out nationwide to try not only to make the process of admission simpler but also to enlist admissions officers as guides for students navigating the equally complex process that confronts them after that.
As generations of applicants to college have experienced, this is not the traditional role of admissions counselors. But as university enrollment falls and Americans increasingly question the returns on a college education, once intimidating admissions offices are getting involved in making sure accepted students have what they need to actually show up.
Gabriel Muñoz had no idea that the program responsible for changing his life at California State University, Chico, was paid for by a federal grant for Hispanic-Serving Institutions. He found out when he learned about the program's termination.
University leaders say Chico State is losing more than $3 million in federal funds as part of a larger cancellation of more than $350 million in grants to minority-serving institutions. Now, around the country, those colleges are hustling to find ways to replace or do without the money.
As immigration raids around the country continue, an unusual agreement between many Florida universities and federal immigration officials is causing a new wave of anxiety among students.
The agreements give university police departments, after training from ICE, authority to conduct immigration enforcement and access to databases to check immigration status. It remains unclear, however, to what extent university police departments have worked with ICE in practice.
