Brand-Building at Community Colleges
In an age of information overload, how do you tell the story of who your college is to students and your community? How do you take charge of your own narrative and showcase all that your college has to offer?
Featured Resources
Some highlights of Lumina's work
We're sharing tools and takeaways from our efforts to create a better-educated nation.
The Great Admissions Redesign
Lumina Foundation is seeking to work with states, higher education systems, and groups of colleges and universities ready to transform how potential students apply, enroll, and access their institutions.
A Stronger Nation
We're tracking America's progress toward the nation's 60% attainment goal.
Community College Challenge
The Million Dollar Community College Challenge team is shining a spotlight on the great work of community colleges around the country.
REACH Collaborative
We're supporting community colleges in six states to create short-term credential-to-degree pathways for adults who are Black, Latino, Hispanic, and Native American.
Changing the Narrative on Student Borrowers of Color
A collection of essays from student loan experts sets the record straight on borrowing among students of color.
Community Grants
Our community grants portfolio supports local organizations in our hometown of Indianapolis and around central Indiana.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Hear stories about how HBCU's help students thrive.
Tuition Reimbursement
Meet a few of the workers and employers participating in tuition reimbursement programs.
Lumina Impact Ventures
Lumina Impact Ventures is the Foundation's impact investing arm partnering with mission-aligned social enterprises.
Local Talent Handbook
A guide for local leaders to build talent pool in their communities.
I Want That Job!
A series from WorkingNation on promising career paths for early career workers
History of Federal Student Aid
A film series documenting the policy and the political origins of federal financial aid programs
Beyond Financial Aid
How colleges can strengthen students’ financial stability, leading to higher completion rates
Degree Qualification Profile
A learning-centered framework for what college graduates should know and be able to do to earn the associate, bachelor’s or master’s degree.
College is still worth it, even with student debt.
Nov. 3, 2025
College remains a strong financial investment even after accounting for student loan payments: degree holders earn on average $8,000 more per year than similar non-completers when accounting for debt ($10,400 without accounting for debt).
Testing a Lower Cost Model of Student Supports
Sept. 22, 2025
Community colleges and broad-access universities (those with minimally selective admissions policies) provide an opportunity for students across the United States to attain postsecondary degrees and achieve economic mobility. However, graduation rates from such colleges are often low and there are many obstacles that can be difficult to overcome, especially for students who must balance work…
Lessons Learned from Year One of the Great Admissions Redesign
Aug. 28, 2025
Faced with a steep demographic cliff and a growing chorus of questions about value, higher education is wrestling with a somewhat unfamiliar question: How can the college admissions process evolve from gatekeeper to gateway?
Using Data to Redesign Postsecondary Admissions
Aug. 14, 2025
This resource examines the role of stronger data systems in addressing challenges and barriers students must currently overcome to access postsecondary education, highlights efforts states and institutions are undertaking to streamline the admissions process, and identifies best practices that have emerged in the field.
Supporting Adult Learners in Postsecondary Education
July 22, 2025
This study sheds light on the motivations, challenges, and successes of the strategies and practices used by a set of postsecondary institutions that have enacted institutional change in support of adult learners of color.
Institutional Change for Adult Learner Success
July 22, 2025
More than 82 million adults 25 years old and over have never enrolled in any postsecondary education, and another 43.1 million adults have some college credits, but no credential. Black, Hispanic, and Native American adults are disproportionately represented in both of these categories. But the fundamental structures and practices of colleges were not built with…
Student Mental Health on College Campuses
June 17, 2025
College students today often face a variety of challenges academic pressures, social and family stresses, financial/ economic hardship stresses, a rapidly shifting technological environment, an increasingly polarized political environment, and more.
Some College, No Credential
June 3, 2025
The Some College, No Credential (formerly: Some College, No Degree) report series seeks to understand the educational trajectories of millions of Americans who left postsecondary education without receiving a degree or certificate. The series offers insights about their subsequent enrollments and completions, based on the most current national data that tracks individual students over time…
Some College, No Credential (SCNC) Student Outcomes
June 3, 2025
This report shows the “some college, no credential” (SCNC) population—former students who stopped out without earning a credential—is up 3.6 percent from a year earlier while fewer SCNC students returned and completed a credential. This suggests there’s an increasingly missed opportunity for states and institutions to reengage SCNC students.
Defining the Part-Time Student and Identifying Promising Practices
May 23, 2025
MDRC researchers share practices likely to support part-time student success.
Four Things We Need to Know About Community College Noncredit Workforce Programs
May 21, 2025
A recent survey found that, for the first time, a majority of Americans believe that a 4-year college education is not worth the cost. In addition, skills-based hiring—that is, recruiting and screening job candidates based on skills, rather than academic degrees—is becoming more common. At the same time, the U.S. Congress has been considering legislative…
The State of Higher Education 2025
May 2, 2025
Since 2020, Lumina Foundation and Gallup have partnered to produce the State of Higher Education study, an annual survey of thousands of U.S. adults without a college degree or credential.
The Reality of Free Speech on College Campuses
April 7, 2025
Learn more about student perspectives on free speech on college campuses Despite national debates suggesting that students face suppression of their views on college campuses, the latest Lumina Foundation-Gallup study tells a different story. The Beyond the Headlines: The Reality of Free Speech on College Campuses report finds that most bachelor's degree students, regardless of political…
How Latinos Pay for College
March 24, 2025
In 2005 Excelencia in Education released the first in-depth and national review of Latino students’ participation in financial aid among all students. Twenty years later, it is revisiting what has changed and what has stayed the same.
In Students’ Own Words
Feb. 3, 2025
Research brief summarizes findings from interviews with Black students about the moment they knew they would be successful in their transfer journeys.
Moments of Insight
Jan. 29, 2025
You don’t know the courage it took for your adult students to get into that room, or just to show up virtually, to that classroom. So, try to meet them where they are. See the obstacles that they’ve already overcome. See their goals as strengths. You can turn those strengths from life into strengths in…
Knocking at the College Door
Dec. 10, 2024
Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates has been an important resource for policymakers, decision-makers, researchers, and planners in education and workforce development since the first edition was produced in 1979. The 11th edition includes this comprehensive report and interactive data visualizations.
Is College Worth It?
Nov. 28, 2024
The Pell Institute has released its latest report, Is College Worth It?: Black, Latinx, and Indigenous Student Voices on the Value of Postsecondary Credentials.
Insights from Adult Learners of Color
Nov. 5, 2024
These are pathways which reflect explicit race conscious policies, programs, and practices that actively address racial inequities to ensure student access and success and engage at an individual, system, and structural level to interrogate and ameliorate inequitable experiences and outcomes.
Factors Affecting First-Year Students’ College Choices
Sept. 30, 2024
This brief shares student perspectives on making application decisions, financing college, and choosing to attend their particular institution, helping leaders to understand students’ enrollment decisions and address challenges to postsecondary access.