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.
As generative artificial intelligence tools become increasingly common, more young people are turning first to chatbots when they have questions. A survey by the Associated Press found that among AI users, 70 percent of young Americans use the tools to search for information.
For colleges and universities, the situation presents a new opportunity to reach students with curated, institution-specific resources via chatbots. This podcast discusses how one college is doing just that: using a text-based AI chatbot to better connect with students and keep them on the degree completion path.
Since last week, colleges have faced immense pressure to fire professors who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination, suggested he had it coming, or criticized his legacy. The issue has animated the highest levels of government.
For free-speech devotees, it’s been a whirlwind week in which arguments in favor of censoring speech considered disturbing and disrespectful—a cause more prominently associated with the left in recent years—were adopted by the right and thrust into overdrive.
Christopher F. Rufo, a conservative activist, is on what he might call a winning streak. Long before it became popular, Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, spearheaded the opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs on college campuses. Now, many universities—by law or by choice—are ditching DEI programs as fast as they can.
Beyond that, Rufo has waged numerous online pressure campaigns against college leaders, leading to the resignations or scuttled appointments of those who’ve extolled the virtues of DEI. But what is really behind Rufo’s philosophy? How might the "colorblind equality" he advocates for colleges be implemented in practice? And how far does he think President Donald Trump should go to upend higher education?
Millions of Americans have taken out loans to pay for college. Ninety-two percent of those loans are from the federal government, about $1.6 trillion worth. Private loans account for the rest, which amount to about $136 billion. But the private loan market for student loans is growing.
Between 2010 and 2018, new federal student loans fell by 25 percent. New private student loans grew by 70 percent in that same period. Now this growth has outpaced nearly every other consumer financial product out there, including mortgages, credit cards, and auto loans. So, what does this mean for student borrowers? Experts weigh in.
As provost of Western Michigan University, Julian Vasquez Heilig says he didn’t feel emboldened to make change; instead, he felt isolated and exposed. After two years, he stepped down, and he now serves as a professor of educational leadership, research, and technology at Western Michigan. He says his issues with the provost role stemmed from the job's design, not Western Michigan.
In this interview, Heilig talks about the provost job and what he’s learned about the role through years of educational leadership research, conversations with colleagues, and his own experience.
Not long after she helped launch Aspirations in Computing—an initiative designed to encourage high school girls to pursue careers in technology—Ruthe Farmer began to notice how many program participants were sharing stories of hardship on social media as they tried to make it through college.
Having faced difficult times herself as an undergraduate, Farmer started to intervene on behalf of those students running low on cash. Ultimately, her efforts culminated with the creation of the Last Mile Education Fund, a Colorado-based nonprofit that provides critical help to students during the home stretch of their academic journey.
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