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.
Viewpoint diversity. Civics. Western civilization. Republicans and conservative-leaning groups across the country have been using these terms prolifically, and at times interchangeably, to explain what’s lacking in higher education today and why the overhauls they’re pushing are necessary.
Now the White House is fueling their push. Some say universities need to reform themselves to regain public and governmental support. But even academics and higher ed observers who may agree that universities have become too one-dimensional now find themselves defending the academy against a conservative campaign to force change under the banner of terms that sometimes sound like euphemisms.
Ryan Arnoldy started community college with the goal of eventually transferring to a four-year university and getting a degree in chemical engineering.
Soon Arnoldy started running up against the same exasperating bottleneck faced by a majority of university and college students: Classes required for his major were often not taught during the semesters he needed them or filled so quickly there were no seats left. Campus layoffs and mounting budget cuts could exacerbate this challenge.
At a community college in San Diego, a student earns an associate’s degree and lands a healthcare job that doubles her family’s income within six months of graduation. Three counties over, another graduate with the same degree struggles to find work that pays more than the typical high school graduate. The schools cost the same. The difference in economic mobility is everything.
About a decade ago, the federal government launched an initiative to highlight such disparities and help students determine where to get the best bang for their educational buck. This project, known as the College Scorecard, now provides 2,000 pieces of information on more than 5,000 institutions.
President Donald Trump is dramatically reshaping higher education, with executive orders attempting to end diversity, equity, and inclusion on campuses; federal agencies cutting billions of dollars in research; legislation that provides less money for some federal student loans; and an attempt, which thus far has failed, to terminate the legal status of thousands of international students.
For incoming freshmen, Trump will hold a commanding position for nearly their entire college careers. In this interview, students at Ohio's universities share their hopes, fears, and concerns about what may be ahead.
Katie Lim was concerned that choosing an unsuitable roommate could ruin her freshman year before it had even started. A portal from the University of Maryland read like a government form: dense with text and full of vague questions. So the 18-year-old did what any self-respecting Gen Zer would do: She turned to Instagram.
As students across the country return to campus for the fall semester, Lim is part of a growing number of incoming first-years outsourcing their roommate search to social media pages helmed by private companies, the latest evolution in the stressful hunt increasingly happening online.
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released a new report this summer that contained mixed results. While many states are making progress in re-enrolling people with some college credit but no degree or credential, the total population of U.S. adults in this group has grown to more than 43 million individuals.
Lumina Foundation's Chris Mullin and Wendy Sedlak discuss what states and institutions are doing to reverse this trend on this podcast. Sallie Glickman, managing director of the Burning Glass Institute, joins the conversation to share new data-driven research to predict the likelihood that students will re-enroll and complete their studies.
.jpg?upscale=true&width=500&upscale=true&name=istockphoto-2187865322-612x612%20(1).jpg)
