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.
Once a global leader in higher education, the United States now finds itself spending more than nearly any of its peer nations while delivering outcomes that fall increasingly short. American students are less likely to complete college on time and more likely to leave school burdened by debt without a degree. They are navigating a system that continues to promise opportunity while too often failing to deliver it in practice.
To change this trend, we need to stop thinking of education as a series of separate stages and start thinking of it as a continuous journey that requires planning, investment, and care at every level, writes Lumina Foundation's Courtney Brown in this perspective piece.
Last fall, a slew of highly selective institutions released incoming class data showing the impacts of the first admissions cycles since the U.S. Supreme Court banned affirmative action. The data varied wildly from institution to institution; many experienced precipitous drops in the percentage of Black and Hispanic students in their freshman classes, but others saw much slighter drops or even small increases.
But this year is different. This time, institutions aren’t being as forthcoming about their data.
The idea that every degree automatically creates value no longer holds true today. Colleges and universities are now being asked to prove that their programs deliver both academic depth and measurable economic benefit.
In this interview, the president of the University of North Texas and former Texas commissioner of higher education offers guidance on aligning policy vision, academic culture, and workforce strategy into a unified approach for student success.
When philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gave Morgan State University a $63 million unrestricted donation, her second major donation in less than five years, it was more than a philanthropic gift. It represented a vote of confidence in Morgan’s leadership, institutional trajectory, and values.
To date, Scott has given the Baltimore-based Historically Black College and University $103 million, which shows considerable trust in how much the institution has grown under the leadership of its president, David K. Wilson.
In the 19th century, pioneers and religious seekers built a constellation of private colleges across the Northeast, South, and Midwest. Now these schools are steadily blinking out. The Council of Independent Colleges, a national trade association, had 658 members at the beginning of the fall 2023 semester. Over the next two years, it lost 18 colleges to closure and three to merger, adding to the dozens that had already closed over the previous decade.
The trickle of shutdowns could soon become a flood: The Trump administration’s crackdown on student visas and harsh anti-immigrant talk will keep away many foreign students, who often pay full tuition. A wave of closings would be devastating, experts say.
"The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t introduce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead."
While journalism instructor Amy Tubbs knows it might sound harsh, the task of hooking readers carries weight for her students at Pulaski High School. As local news dwindles across the country, Pulaski News has become a fixture of the community, a tool to prepare students for the workforce, and the last official source keeping residents informed about hyperlocal happenings in their rural Wisconsin village.
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