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.
For years, Americans have been losing confidence in higher education, with a decade-long slide in opinion polls that has alarmed university leaders and bolstered government efforts to aggressively remake colleges.
But a national poll released Wednesday signals a shift: Nearly half of respondents said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. Nearly 80 percent said that a college education is very or somewhat important for a young person to succeed.
Though student housing is often thought of as an issue at four-year colleges, finding and keeping a place to live can be a particular challenge for community college students—many of whom come from low-income backgrounds and lack family financial support or have children or other caretaking responsibilities.
In Portland, Oregon, a nonprofit called College Housing Northwest is working to address low-cost student housing. The group's latest project was a big one: Leaders used state grants to buy and renovate an old hotel in a Portland suburb and are now offering low-cost studio apartments there to students. They rent to students without requiring extensive credit history or a cosigner, and they ask for only a small security deposit. Rent is roughly $400 cheaper than the average studio apartment in the area, with all utilities and Wi-Fi included.
The invention of calculus enabled humans to measure all sorts of things they couldn’t before, such as the speed of a planet at a moment in time, electrical voltage, and the marginal profit from selling a product. More dubiously, calculus has also been used for years to measure the college-readiness of students.
However, many higher education experts say viewing the math course as a proxy for rigor presents equity-related and pedagogical problems.
As he put on the costume for Billy Bronco—the mascot for California State Polytechnic University, Pomona—Geoffrey, a 21-year-old psychology major, got to momentarily escape his personal troubles and focus on entertaining students and their families at orientation.
But those who interacted with Billy Bronco on that hot summer day in late July didn’t know that the person inside the horse mascot was facing what many college students face every day: Geoffrey was on the verge of being homeless.
Student loan borrowers are facing a ticking time bomb that could result in an “enormous tax liability.” That’s according to a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Education in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The complaint alleges that the Department of Education withheld income-driven repayment plans and their benefits. That delay, combined with a looming change in the tax laws, could potentially result in harm to millions of borrowers, including a huge tax bill for some of them, if the Department does not cancel their loans before January 1, 2026.
In 2016, Charlie Kirk wasn’t yet a household name. The young activist had co-founded Turning Point USA four years earlier to help spread conservative ideas on college campuses. But shortly after President Donald Trump’s first election, the group launched an ambitious new project—the Professor Watchlist—aimed at highlighting what it saw as left-leaning bias in higher education.
The list, easily available online, now has more than 300 professor names, listed under categories like “Terror Supporter,” “LGBTQ,” “Antifa,” and “Socialism.” Once dismissed by critics as a fringe culture war stunt, education experts say the list helped kick off a movement that continues today to monitor and expose perceived ideological opponents.
