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.
Almost three months after the arrest of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, international students in the United States still face unprecedented challenges and threats from the federal government. For many of these students, this semester has been a turbulent one filled with existential fear, fleeting hope, and, most importantly, uncertainty about their future.
Here are five updates from the past month on the Trump administration’s evolving policies and practices regarding international students—and where they’re headed next.
Lawmakers in conservative states are taking more control over what is taught and required at public colleges and universities, an effort that some faculty say threatens the foundation of higher education and academic freedom.
Specifically, new laws in Ohio, Utah, and Florida are reshaping the core classes that college students take to meet graduation requirements. The changes require students to take civics courses that focus on Western civilization and prohibit classes centered on race or gender from counting toward core requirements.
Since the 1950s, when the federal government expanded the National Institutes of Health and created the National Science Foundation as public-private research partnerships, the United States has become the international mecca for science. Federal money enabled scientific discoveries that made American research institutions the envy of the world, and they in turn fueled the rise of the United States as the leader in technology and biotechnology.
Now, American science finds itself fighting on several fronts as the Trump administration seeks to cut budgets and seal borders to punish universities for their liberalism and federal health agencies for their responses to COVID.
High school seniors around the country are graduating, a rite of passage that marks a profound shift. It can feel as if everyone is asking them what comes next. For immigrant students, these discussions have an extra layer of complexity this year.
In addition to fears about being deported or being separated from family members, these students now worry about financial aid complications and whether their immigration status will prevent them from getting professional licenses in the fields they hope to study. Some have changed their college plans altogether.
Eight years ago, Southwest Wisconsin Technical College faced a crisis. An accreditation agency had placed the Grant County community college on probation. Without improvements, the college risked losing its accreditation, which would have affected the roughly 3,700 students near the Iowa border training for careers as mechanics, midwives, farmers, and more.
The news jolted the college into action, with leaders there revamping curriculum and counseling, cutting majors, and adding training for industry certifications.
In many ways, it looks like a typical college graduation. There are balloons, flowers, and squares of frosted marble cake. Rows of family and friends face a lectern in the fluorescent-lit gymnasium.
But the uniformed guards patrolling the gym underscored that this is no ordinary commencement. It is the first of its kind to take place inside the East Moline Correctional Center, a minimum-security men’s prison on the Illinois-Iowa border about two and a half hours west of Chicago.
