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.
Education beyond high school remains one of the surest paths to economic stability, yet many individuals face substantial barriers to enrolling and completing a degree or credential. Short-term interventions help, but they are often insufficient. Students balancing education with work and family responsibilities need sustained support, not just at the point of entry but throughout their journey.
In this perspective piece, Lumina Foundation's Wendy Sedlak and Ernest Ezeugo highlight a new report that describes how public benefits and financial aid shape educational pathways in distinct but complementary ways. One increases access; the other supports progress. Together, they drive outcomes.
When CareerWise Colorado's youth apprenticeship program launched in 2016, founder Noel Ginsburg had envisioned 20,000 students participating in the first decade. So far, that number comes to 1,200 students. The organization also takes credit for about 2,000 more apprentices who have participated in programs originally started by or inspired by CareerWise. Even including those students, that means CareerWise fell short by about 16,800 apprentices.
CareerWise's 10-year journey highlights the challenges of providing effective on-the-job training for high school students, an idea with broad bipartisan support and growing investment yet difficult to implement at scale.
There’s a tectonic shift underway that most Americans may not think about but see every day when they take their pets to the vet or their kids to the dentist, need a lawyer or an eye exam, see a therapist or pick up a prescription: More and more of the highly educated specialists who provide these services are women.
This is positive news for women. But there’s a catch. Men represent half of the potential labor force, and their relative absence from higher education is expected to worsen worker shortages in critical fields such as health care. It also could affect the nation’s global competitiveness at a time when other countries are increasing college-going.
Generative artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how we learn, work, communicate, and solve challenges. Platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude are becoming integral to workplaces, healthcare, business, and education. Many community colleges are responding to this transformation by integrating AI into classrooms, workforce training programs, student support services, and institutional operations.
At the same time, a new equity challenge has emerged: the AI divide.
Across the United States, the rapid shift in equity work and initiatives has had a substantial impact on universities' functions and operations. Amid backlash and the rollout of anti-DEI efforts, higher education stakeholders have seen state and federal governments push to neutralize “gender and race ideologies.”
In Texas, the sociopolitical climate is tense, and university professors in gender and ethnic studies are facing scrutiny from state and university policies. Increasingly, Texas institutions are beginning to condense their identity-based programs in ethnic and gender studies under broader administrative department names. Some say this strategy will only accelerate the erasure of cultural histories.
California’s community colleges represent the largest higher education system in the country—more than two million students. But walking around a community college campus, it’s often difficult to tell.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, cafeterias and local coffee shops are quieter, and fewer students are sitting on the quad. Even after campuses returned to in-person classes, many students are still working from their dining room table: About 40 percent of all community college classes are online. These courses are more accessible, college officials say, but they come with serious drawbacks.
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