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.
Thomas A. Parham’s seven-year stint as president of California State University, Dominguez Hills, is coming to an end. During his tenure, the campus made progress in graduating and retaining students. Dominguez Hills established a place on national college rankings for social mobility and student diversity, though enrollment has declined from roughly 18,000 to 15,000 students since 2020. And while new construction and accreditations on campus are a point of pride for Parham, 71, Dominguez Hills is also among Cal State campuses to enact difficult budget cuts in recent years, prompting protests from some students and faculty.
Parham reflects on these and other issues in this interview.
The landscape for financial aid is about to change. In 2026, the federal government will curb access to billions of dollars in student loans, reconfigure how borrowers repay their debt, and provide new grant money for short-term career training programs.
While some higher education experts say the changes will deliver commonsense reforms, others worry they could discourage college enrollment and persistence. Either way, students entering college in fall 2026 will encounter a very different federal financial aid system.
Tucked into the GOP’s sweeping domestic policy bill this year was a provision that set lifetime borrowing caps for students working toward graduate and professional degrees. But when the U.S. Department of Education ultimately decided this fall which professions would be eligible for the highest debt limits, it left nursing off the list.
Deans of nursing schools and associations representing nurses fear the omission could worsen the shortage of critical health care providers in the United States. Now, some Republicans are angling to roll back the Education Department’s decision.
Amy Hockett had been through it before. A college program would arrive at Indiana Women’s Prison with big promises—degrees, a path forward, and a chance to transform her life. She’d enroll, start classes, and navigate through a semester. Then the program would disappear.
It happened again. And again. When Marian University introduced its liberal arts program in 2019, Hockett was not convinced. She’d already earned her GED during her lengthy sentence and worked through self-help programs to “become a better person.” She’d heard the college pitch before. But to her surprise, this time turned out to be different.
Short-term credentials have grown increasingly popular since the pandemic with the promise of faster and more flexible pathways to opportunity. As a result, more employers are considering skills-based hiring while evaluating candidates’ traditional credentials.
At the same time, state investments in short-term credential programs must be backed by systems that help learners identify credentials of value and find the programs that can serve them best. Lumina Foundation's Kermit Kaleba explains more in this piece on where higher education is heading in 2026.
Higher education saw unprecedented policy changes in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term in office. From the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education to billions of federal dollars withheld from hundreds of institutions, including the nation’s most prestigious, 2025 was a whirlwind for thousands of colleges and universities in the United States.
Here’s a look at some of the major changes in higher education policy this past year.
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