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.
College admissions professionals have long lamented the public's lack of understanding of the admissions decision-making process. But that disconnect appears even wider during the second Trump administration. The president and the Republican Party have launched a relentless campaign for what they call merit-based admissions and against any aspect of the holistic admissions process they’ve deemed a “proxy” for race.
The question of whether admissions professionals can continue to do their jobs under those circumstances was a constant undercurrent of the 2025 National Association for College Admission Counseling conference last week.
Colleges are notoriously difficult places for those who have children to succeed. In addition to navigating institutions designed for students without dependents, parenting students face non-tuition costs that are significantly higher than those of their peers without children, in part due to the high costs of child care.
The newly reintroduced Child Care Access Means Parents in School Reauthorization Act can help, industry officials say.
College campuses are buzzing with activity as students return after summer break. But change is also in the air. More than 400 colleges and universities have eliminated or rebranded programs and centers that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.
DEI programs have been under a microscope since state laws and President Trump's executive orders labeled them as discriminatory. So what's the future of DEI in higher education? Paulette Granberry Russell, president and CEO of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, offers insight in this interview.
With his resignation last week as president of Texas A&M University, Mark A. Welsh III signaled that the complicated politics that had defined his short tenure from the start had finally proved impossible to navigate.
While trying to appease both conservatives and faculty, he managed to satisfy neither. The politics that engulfed Welsh are indicative of a larger national trend in which college leaders are struggling—to varying degrees—to uphold fundamental values of institutional autonomy and academic freedom in the face of a broad conservative effort to reshape higher education.
Harvard University's former president, Claudine Gay, offered a blunt assessment of the school’s current administration this month, criticizing it for complying with demands from the Trump White House.
Her remarks, which were given at a conference at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Amsterdam, are striking in that they appear to criticize her successor, Alan Garber.
Earlier this summer, as graduates from across the country walked onstage, shook hands, and received their diplomas, speakers from all walks of life stood before them and shared messages of hope, inspiration, and guidance. They spoke of overcoming obstacles, leaning into change, and finding the path to fulfillment. They painted broad pictures of how the Class of 2025 could embark on their next chapter with meaning and purpose.
In hearing those commencement speeches, it became clear to the president of Lackawanna College that the higher education industry could use one of its own. Jill Murray explains more in this essay on today's shifting higher education landscape and what colleges can do to more effectively serve students.
