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.
Every so often, a new story makes the rounds about how Americans without four-year college degrees can still make six-figure salaries. Such stories broaden people’s sense of possibility in the labor market. But they also tend to distort the conversation.
The real value of higher education lies not just in a diploma but in the mindset it instills: that learning never stops and that the path to opportunity is rarely linear. That is the message we need to carry into every conversation about the future of work, writes Lumina Foundation's Jamie Merisotis in his latest column for Forbes.
Hampshire College, a small, embattled liberal-arts college in Massachusetts, missed its fall enrollment goal by nearly half—a striking shortfall after seeing years of recovery in its student population and its highest number of applications in over a decade.
What happened? Jennifer Chrisler, Hampshire’s new president, attributes part of the problem to the growing pains that the college encountered with direct admissions. The institution had also set a highly ambitious goal based on historical trends.
Weeks after pushing through deeply unpopular program cuts, University of Nebraska–Lincoln chancellor Rodney Bennett has left his role six months early—with a $1 million golden parachute.
His exit at Nebraska has prompted faculty concerns about executive spending as questions linger about whether program cuts driven by Bennett were avoidable. NU system officials, however, have defended the cuts as necessary due to a recurring budget deficit and argued that Bennett’s exit package is what was owed to him—a mix of unpaid leave, deferred income, health-care benefits, and the remainder of his contract set to expire in June.
Since retaking office last year, President Donald Trump and his administration have pushed to downsize and disrupt the country’s longstanding system of scientific research, which for decades has relied on a financial partnership between the federal government and scientists, many of them attached to universities.
Now, Senate lawmakers have engineered bipartisan fiscal 2026 spending proposals that would largely maintain scientific funding, defying Trump's calls for massive cuts to research.
With only a year left in office, Gov. Ron DeSantis has a limited window of time to wield power in Tallahassee. But on college campuses across Florida, DeSantis continues to expand his army of political loyalists—both college presidents and university trustees, who are poised to dominate for many years to come, regardless of who is elected governor in 2026.
As a result, higher education could become DeSantis’ enduring political legacy. And the governor’s final year in office will provide still more opportunities to push academia in a conservative direction.
Colleges and universities across the nation are observing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday with extensive service projects and discussions on racial equity, as the federal holiday marks its 31st year as a National Day of Service.
The celebrations come amid ongoing national debates over diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher education and as the United States marks its semiquincentennial year.
