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.
Workforce Pell officially takes effect today, July 1. The federal program's expansion, the most significant in decades, creates access to high-quality, short-term training programs for more Americans seeking in-demand jobs. The program also brings several key changes to the nation's higher education and workforce development systems.
On this episode of Today's Students, Tomorrow's Talent, two individuals who have been working behind the scenes on Workforce Pell for years—Katie Berger and Kermit Kabela—talk through the questions, challenges, and opportunities associated with the new Workforce Pell grant.
Ohio Senate Bill 1 is often described with big words: Sweeping. Wide-ranging. An overhaul. All are true. The state law, which took effect in June 2025, ushered in new rules that revamped how public colleges and universities operate in Ohio. Republican lawmakers say they needed the law to combat what they saw as a “woke” culture at the state’s 14 universities and 22 community colleges.
In this interview, more than a dozen educators from institutions across Ohio describe how SB-1 revamped their work over the past year. Many say they are implementing new approaches to research, watching colleagues “quietly disengage,” and navigating rules they believe remain unclear.
Some of higher education’s hardest leadership questions require balancing the practical and the principled. Nowhere is that clearer than at Columbia University, where Jennifer Mnookin officially becomes president today.
Columbia was home to some of the tensest and most publicized clashes between pro- and anti-Israel activists in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Later, it became the first target in the federal government’s campaign to overhaul prestigious universities and the first to strike a deal with the Trump administration. Mnookin will now be expected to pull the university out of one of its most turbulent periods in 272 years.
Nearly four in five students at regional public universities are concerned that a financial emergency will prevent them from continuing school, and more than half say they are “just getting by” financially, according to a new report from the nonprofit think tank Third Way.
In a wide-ranging survey of 500 regional public university students, Third Way asks about finances, politics, artificial intelligence, and what the media gets wrong about their college experience.
By offering direct admission before a formal application is submitted, colleges and universities are able to streamline the process, removing barriers such as essays, application fees, and letters of recommendation. Often, states using direct admission have reduced the college admission process to a single form that yields responses from multiple schools. It also benefits institutions—as a recruitment strategy that can help boost funding.
At least 15 states have adopted or expanded direct admission programs. In this issue of Focus, high school seniors in three of those states—California, Hawaii, and Wisconsin—share their views about the process and how, in some instances, it provided a lifeline to the future.
Until now, students enrolled part time at colleges and universities have qualified for the same direct federal student loans as full-time students. That changes today: From now on, part-time students will only be eligible for loans proportional to the number of credits they take. In other words, a student taking only 50 percent of a full course load will receive only 50 percent of a full loan.
The challenge, contend advocates, is that most part-time students aren’t taking a reduced course load by choice. They may be working a job, dealing with health challenges, or taking care of children. Indeed, several former part-time students say the new rule would likely have prevented them from obtaining degrees.
.jpeg?upscale=true&width=500&upscale=true&name=images%20(55).jpeg)
.jpeg?upscale=true&width=500&upscale=true&name=images%20(59).jpeg)
.jpeg?upscale=true&width=500&upscale=true&name=images%20(57).jpeg)
.jpeg?upscale=true&width=500&upscale=true&name=images%20(58).jpeg)
.jpg?upscale=true&width=500&upscale=true&name=istockphoto-1128909053-612x612%20(1).jpg)
