The nation’s educational attainment rate after high school in 2021 was 53.7 percent. This figure means 53.7 percent of working-age adults— those 25 to 64 years old—had earned college degrees or other credentials beyond a high school diploma that could lead to further education and better pay or jobs.

Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. We envision a system that is easy to navigate, delivers fair results, and meets the nation’s need for talent through a broad range of credentials. Our goal is to prepare people for informed citizenship and success…

Although a great deal of attention is paid to student debt, colleges and universities have increased their institutional debt substantially over the past several decades. Institutions primarily borrow these funds for capital investments on campus. This may include building new labs and educational facilities, sports arenas, or dormitories. The array of projects reflects the variation…

Test-only placement systems are associated with inaccurate placement determinations that can perpetuate college achievement gaps by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. In response, colleges across the country are increasingly experimenting with and adopting alternative placement strategies that reduce the number of students assigned to prerequisite developmental education and increase access to college-level courses.

Tech industry workforce demographics reveal a need for increased diversity, and many employers have shown a desire to make their teams more diverse and inclusive.

AB 705 continues to drive large-scale changes in placement and remediation in California’s community colleges. The law requires colleges to rely on high school grades for placement and restricts colleges from requiring remedial courses if these courses do not improve students’ timely completion of math and English requirements for transfer to a university.

California’s community colleges began implementing Assembly Bill 705 in fall 2019, making major assessment and placement reforms that moved students away from remedial prerequisites for English and math and into transfer-level courses.

The Pell Grant is targeted to students with the greatest financial need, and many policymakers find the Pell Grant a useful policy lever for promoting access and success for students from lower- and moderate-income backgrounds.

More than one-fifth of all college students are student parents. That’s nearly 4 million college students with children. In between taking classes, millions of these individuals hold part-time or full-time jobs while also managing the tasks of raising a family.

Acting on data about both part-time and full-time students is essential to moving the needle on college completion. It also is an equity issue. Part-time student attainment rates severely lag behind those of their full-time counterparts, regardless of sector or timeframe. And part-time students are disproportionately BILPOC (Black, Indigenous, Latinx, People of Color) students, community…