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.
Over the last decade, universities across the country have opened centers that focus on civic or classical education, many of which have been pushed by Republican state legislatures.
Some academics cite the emergence of these centers, more than a dozen of which exist at public universities, as evidence of shadow partisan influence. Other scholars have been more supportive of leaning into civic education. Whatever their reception, new institutes continue to proliferate. So far, however, students aren’t flocking to their courses.
California's Golden State Teacher Grant Program has provided critical financial support to some 28,600 aspiring educators over its first five years, according to a new report from the Learning Policy Institute.
The grant program, which has distributed over $570 million since 2020-21, appears to be making a significant dent in the state's persistent teacher shortage. In 2023-24, when the grant became available to all candidates, nearly half of California's new teacher candidates received it.
Artificial intelligence has become a pivotal force in higher education, reshaping how professors teach and students learn. Students, in fact, in this year's senior class at universities across the country are the first to have spent nearly their entire college career in the age of generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content such as text, images, music, and code.
As the technology advances, it becomes increasingly more difficult to distinguish from human work—and that's shaking academia to its core with some very big questions.
The Trump administration is soon expected to propose a plan that would cap loans for a number of advanced degrees—including master’s and doctoral degrees in nursing—and it’s gone viral on social media.
Influencers and advocacy groups have criticized the plan online for allegedly declassifying certain degrees. But defining programs as professional or graduate isn’t a debate about social prestige or cultural characterization; it’s a debate about access to student loans, and now the U.S. Department of Education says it’s time to “set the record straight.”
Research and policy discussions often focus on the negative effects of college closures on students, but that’s only part of the story. Colleges also serve as anchor institutions—local economic and cultural engines whose sudden disappearance can leave regions flat-footed.
Communities with colleges also have higher levels of educational attainment, employment in human capital-intensive industries, economic mobility, and local economic output. Closures affect entire communities, far beyond campus borders.
Throughout the United States, Americans are demanding proof that college pays off, and higher education leaders, to their credit, are responding. The value conversation—once an undercurrent in policy debates—is now at the center of nearly every discussion about the future of postsecondary education.
Delivering value—including measuring it, improving it, and sustaining it—is not simple. The good news? Several states are taking action.
.jpg?width=500&upscale=true&name=istockphoto-2234704756-612x612%20(1).jpg)