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.
Last week, Little Priest Tribal College in Winnebago, Nebraska, announced that it had received a $5 million unrestricted donation from MacKenzie Scott, who has given more than $1 billion to higher education institutions over the past several years.
While a $5 million donation is hardly newsworthy for many of the nation’s research institutions, it’s nothing short of transformative for Little Priest, which has a $4 million endowment, 258 students, and a long history of financial hardship.
Across the country, colleges and universities are struggling to figure out how to incorporate artificial intelligence into the classroom. Many see technology like ChatGPT as a study buddy, an immense research tool, and for some, a way to cheat the system.
In this interview, technology insiders examine how AI is changing the college experience and what it means for the future of teaching and learning.
Montclair State University’s controversial plans to restructure its academic departments into interdisciplinary schools elevate a debate about college bureaucracy and disciplinary coherence that normally gets little attention. The plan essentially asks, "What is the value of a department?"
The debate at Montclair State also touches on intersecting challenges facing liberal arts programs. Declines in enrollment and an unfavorable narrative about the value of majors have contributed to a shrinking share of students majoring in the humanities, often because career trajectories are uncertain. But advocates can’t simply fall back on “telling a better story” about their disciplines, education watchers say. Academics need to think actively about how to restructure what they offer.
The ultrawealthy have long lorded their money and might over university presidents, pelting them with ideas and demands, promises and threats. Now they have an ally in the White House.
President Trump’s approach represents a shift in how wealthy people are shaping higher education. Some of the moneyed voices Trump has elevated have sought to expunge progressive orthodoxy from academia and tilt campuses rightward. The president and his allies have also pursued an aggressive campaign to realize their vision, including reshaping the relationship between the federal government and the nation’s colleges and universities.
For decades, Native American students have faced a paradox in American higher education: they are simultaneously overrepresented in discussions about educational equity yet severely undercounted in the data systems designed to support them.
This statistical invisibility has created what researchers are now calling a “crisis”—one that threatens not only individual student success but also the federal government’s ability to meet its legal obligations to tribal nations.
A confluence of technological, political, and economic forces is fundamentally restructuring the pathway from high school to career, forcing a long-overdue reckoning in higher education. The traditional four-year degree is no longer the default but one option in a rapidly expanding marketplace of credentials and skills acquisition.
For students, parents, and policymakers, understanding these trends is critical to navigating higher education's new landscape.
