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.
Registered apprenticeship programs are becoming more and more popular in the United States. They're not an innovation, per se, since apprenticeships predate the modern university by centuries. But many institutions are helping to define what an apprenticeship can be. In doing so, they’re reimagining the interplay between higher education and the workforce and how learners can obtain a credential of value.
Today’s apprenticeship programs span not only the skilled trades but also fields from nursing and teaching to cybersecurity. And while apprenticeships can and do exist outside of higher education, they’re increasingly offered for credit or embedded within degree pathways.
Students can’t stand them. But campus presidents can’t live without them.
Mandatory student fees across California State University rose tens and sometimes hundreds of dollars over the past decade, a recent analysis shows, as university leaders raised funds for everything from new construction and athletics to a food pantry and student financial aid. But rising fees have prompted outcry from some students, particularly when the Cal State system is increasing tuition while cutting course sections and degrees because money is so tight.
To understand Reverend Jesse Jackson is to understand that his entire political and moral philosophy was rooted in a specific, personal encounter with the gates of learning and what it felt like to be turned away from them. Jackson's advocacy for investments in minority higher education, his push for tuition-free quality schooling, and his insistence that Historically Black Colleges and Universities were engines of social mobility and not second-tier institutions were not talking points. Those convictions represented his autobiography, according to those who knew him.
Jackson died on February 17, 2026, at the age of 84.
Today's credential landscape consists of more than a million credentials—from certifications to bootcamps to professional courses. The sheer volume of this marketplace makes it difficult for learners to distinguish between credentials that will actually benefit their career and the ones unlikely to pay off.
In this interview, Matt Sigelman of The Burning Glass Institute talks about the labor market value of non-degree credentials, their impact on traditional four-year degrees, and his organization's work to help consumers find credentials that deliver real value.
While international student enrollment has remained relatively flat overall so far, student visa experts and university leaders say that might change as the Trump administration’s restrictive visa and immigration policies could deter new enrollment of this population.
Finding ways to recruit and welcome international students—through efforts like diversifying outreach programs to different countries and providing international students with flexibility on when they must start their studies or make payments—is more crucial than ever for many institutions, experts say.
The country’s most ambitious high schoolers now have one more thing to fret over: crafting their “summer story.”
Overachieving teenagers have long pursued a smorgasbord of résumé-polishing summer activities. But a range of impressive summer pursuits is no longer enough, some college advisors say. Students now feel pressure to specialize—as early as their freshman summer—in interests they want to pursue in college.
