Lumina Foundation is committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025.
Imagine being a single parent, a full-time college student, and holding down a full-time job—all while trying to manage the delicate balance of childcare. Suddenly, one too many last-minute disruptions to your childcare arrangement costs you your job, your only source of income. With eviction looming, you are forced to move between friends’ couches and temporary shelters while trying to keep up with classes and pursue a pathway to economic security for you and your children.
For many parenting students, this scenario is a harsh reality.
Stephanie Tully-Dartez, president of South Arkansas College, says leaders at her institution have been talking about creating robust microcredential programs for some time now. But they never had the resources to get them off the ground.
That changed when the college joined a partnership with the Education Design Lab and seven other community colleges in the state to build what's called “micro-pathways"—stackable credentials that can be earned in a year or less and get students into high-demand careers faster. The idea is that the credentials can be counted toward degrees, too, creating an on-ramp to more higher education later on.
The demand for manufacturing jobs in America is surging—fueled in part by the infusion of federal funding through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act enacted in 2021, the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, and private funding.
But finding skilled talent to fill these roles is an ongoing and growing challenge. In this interview, workforce experts from The Manufacturing Institute and the Burning Glass Institute weigh in on how employers can best build a strong talent pipeline.
For all the political oxygen that higher education consumed during Donald Trump’s four years out of office, the once and future president has yet to put forth a comprehensive policy agenda on postsecondary education for his second term—including how he’ll approach programs to ease postsecondary access.
Regardless of the outcome, it is certain that Trump's second term will significantly impact federal financial aid and the students who depend on it.
Every year, institutions funnel hundreds of thousands of first-year students into math and English remedial courses, including 40 percent of students at public two-year colleges.
Historically, most students forced to take these classes don’t finish, with non-completion rates running twice as high among Black, Hispanic, and low-income students. Once they run out of time, money, and patience, very few students who start in remediation classes manage to graduate.
This broken developmental education model has long been a barrier to student success. And reforming it is one of higher education’s biggest challenges and opportunities, writes Brandon Protas of Complete College America in this op-ed.
Scammers who pose as students and enroll to steal financial aid have plagued California's community colleges since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the situation is only getting worse. The state’s 116-college system lost more than $7.5 million to financial aid fraud this year, with most of it in the form of Pell Grants intended for low-income students.
For their part, colleges are trying to deter the fraud with both more human interaction and automated detection. Officials believe they're getting better at catching fraudulent activity, but the growing losses show that the college system is still vulnerable to scammers, who are often part of sophisticated crime rings.
