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.
Diversity was not always the partisan concept it’s become today, says David Oppenheimer, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In his new book, The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea, Oppenheimer traces the history of diversity as a guiding framework for institutions, largely through the people and court rulings that shaped it.
In this interview, the author discusses why diversity still matters on today's campuses and what colleges can do to preserve it in the face of the Trump administration’s attacks.
When California Gov. Gavin Newsom cut the ribbon on the new San Quentin Learning Center, he cast the moment as symbolic. The partnership between California State University Los Angeles and the San Quentin Learning Center is poised to be "a cornerstone of the California model, which emphasizes accountability, education, and reentry in the rehabilitation of the state’s incarcerated population,” according to officials.
But the expansion of bachelor’s degree access inside San Quentin may prove even more consequential than the symbolism, as the move builds on California’s long-established role as a national leader in prison education.
California’s public universities have weathered past economic shocks—from the dot-com bust to the Great Recession—by adapting what they teach and how they prepare students for work and civic life.
Artificial intelligence and a new federal earnings test for higher education programs are once again testing this capacity for adaptation. Two professors suggest in this op-ed that unless action is taken with an emphasis on technology and career placement, many California academic departments will be at risk in the coming years.
Employers across multiple sectors are facing persistent talent shortages while investing significant resources in internal training, yet much of this training does not translate into industry-recognized or college-awarded credentials. As a result, workers gain experience but often lack formal documentation of their knowledge, limiting advancement opportunities and reducing the long-term value of employer-sponsored training.
Community colleges are in a unique position to bridge that gap by transforming employer training into workforce-ready credentials that benefit students, businesses, and the college itself.
The first year of the second Trump administration inspired a bonanza of federal lobbying across sectors. Higher education was no exception.
Parts of the sector—including major research universities and some of the wealthiest liberal arts colleges—increased their spending on outside lobbying firms by millions of dollars, in aggregate, between 2024 and 2025. Whether they were trying to fend off attacks on their institutions or influence policies that affect large swaths of higher education, it wasn’t always clear what they got for their money.
Some prominent U.S. universities are cutting programs and paring back campus spending in response to unexpected endowment tax hikes.
College leaders are making these adjustments as the Trump administration continues its sweeping efforts to reshape university cultures to be, as government officials describe it, more receptive to conservative viewpoints and more oriented toward career training. Now, some worry that fewer discoveries will emerge as a result, and fewer curious, creative, motivated young people will have access to the education needed to carry out rigorous research that benefits lives across the region, country, and globe.
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