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.
Ask any parent or prospective student, and they’ll likely tell you that between opaque financial aid calculations, questions about degree value, and the murky student loan system, paying for college is not a straightforward process.
Experts warn that if Congress moves forward with new higher education reforms, it could get even more difficult to navigate—and expensive.
Utah County resident Becky Golly was 44 when she began her prison sentence in 2018 and hadn’t been in school for almost three decades. She left the Utah State Correctional Facility six years later with two associate degrees from Salt Lake Community College, multiple certificates from Davis Technical College, and several classes from the University of Utah under her belt.
Golly, who is one of the many success stories of college-in-prison programs, credits her educational experiences as an incarcerated student for her new outlook on life as a returning citizen.
When you ask "Hernan" what his future looks like, he envisions himself in a hard hat, leading a group of construction workers on a major project. Hernan is a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. He's asked that his last name not be used because he fears being targeted for his immigration status.
Hernan needs to pass nine more classes to earn his bachelor's degree in construction management at Seminole State College. But a law that is scheduled to go into effect later this year is about to make his dream much harder to achieve.
Despite being historically underfunded, Historically Black Colleges and Universities have consistently produced exceptional outcomes for their students. Yet, the conversation around HBCUs in higher education often focuses solely on how to secure more resources for these institutions, rather than exploring how other colleges and universities can replicate their success.
HBCUs deserve stronger support and funding, but they are not charity cases—and their impact extends beyond serving any single type of student. Rather than solely asking how to assist HBCUs, maybe we should also be asking what the rest of higher education can learn from these leading institutions.
The crises and critiques facing higher education—from campus protests and declining public trust to research funding and economic ROI—have become a constant source of headlines.
In this interview, which was recorded at the Milken Global Institute, university presidents and business leaders discuss how institutions can reaffirm their missions, serve a broader public, and restore faith in the value of a degree in an era of polarization and political scrutiny.
When more individuals hold high-value credentials, workforce participation increases, financial security becomes attainable for more families, and economic growth accelerates.
But these benefits won’t materialize without action. Federal and state governments must prioritize education funding, align learning with workforce needs, and reaffirm education as a public good, writes Lumina Foundation's Courtney Brown in this op-ed on education as a pillar of economic strategy.
