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.
PJ Woolston has spent much of his career working as a college administrator. He's held senior roles, carried expansive portfolios, and had titles that critics of higher education increasingly cite as evidence of “administrative bloat.”
Woolston says that the real problem in higher education isn't about titles. It’s that institutions take on too many priorities without making corresponding choices about what not to do. When that happens, the result is not just administrative strain, but less institutional attention devoted to teaching and learning itself.
The U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 decision to end race-conscious college admissions produced starkly different outcomes across American higher education, with Black and Hispanic enrollment plunging at the nation's most selective universities while increasing at the vast majority of other institutions, according to new federal data from the group Class Action.
The findings reveal what researchers call a "cascade effect," in which highly qualified students of color who previously would have received an admissions advantage at elite schools instead enrolled at less selective institutions, increasing diversity at 83 percent of state flagship universities.
For many students, including Chanthy Lopes Toro, higher education isn’t a luxury; it’s a lifeline. However, for those hailing from communities with limited opportunities and unfavorable circumstances, pursuing a college degree can be an unattainable aspiration. The key to changing that trajectory often hinges on a single form.
That form is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid—better known as the FAFSA. In this essay, Lopes Toro explains how filling out the FAFSA unlocked the financial aid she needed to achieve her college dreams—and why she supports bills to establish a universal FAFSA policy.
It's easy to agree that upskilling is needed, but it's hard to find a plan that benefits both the employee and the company.
In this interview, Haley Glover of UpSkill America at the Aspen Institute discusses how businesses can effectively upskill their workforce in an AI-driven economy. Drawing on her experience at Lumina Foundation, Amazon, and the Aspen Institute, Glover explains how upskilling has shifted from managing talent acquisition crises to strategic workforce planning focused on validated skills.
Despite the growing adoption of Credit for Prior Learning in higher education, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated learners remain especially disconnected from the advantages CPL can offer.
Recent efforts to make higher education more available in prison have also tended to reinforce a narrow view of academic learning. This view favors classroom-based instruction and ignores the many different experiences that shape learning in prison. As a result, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated learners have limited opportunities to accelerate their academic progress in ways that are increasingly available to other adult learners.
After federal cuts to colleges and universities that enroll high percentages of students of color, Colorado lawmakers want to create a new state designation to signal that certain campuses are a welcoming place for those students.
Sponsors of House Bill 6 say an advisory committee of state, college, and business leaders would establish criteria for the "Thriving Institution" designation, such as metrics on students’ ability to complete a degree.
