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.
A new grant competition from the U.S. Department of Education redirects federal funding intended for programs that support college student success to four areas aligned with the president’s priorities. Critics contend those four areas have little to do with access and retention.
Previous presidents have also reprioritized this pot of funding to reflect their policy agenda, but they’ve done so within the existing programs as directed by Congress. In the latest award priorities, student success advocates say the department has overstepped the bounds of what lawmakers intended for these funds.
One university president resigned. Another is facing significant challenges. A new governor is heading into office, flipping party control to the Democrats. It’s all happening in Virginia, which has become a key battleground in a larger political war over higher education. This past summer, Jim Ryan resigned as president of the University of Virginia, hoping to stave off federal investigations of the university’s diversity efforts.
Now, Gregory Washington, president of George Mason University, is under fire for similar issues and fighting to keep his job. In tumultuous fashion, the commonwealth of Virginia has become a tinderbox of state and federal political fury—and there’s no clear end in sight.
In September, Toddy Eames ushered her Cal State Dominguez Hills film students out of the classroom and into the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in downtown Los Angeles to watch “Jaws.” She calls it a “unique” experience these days—a shared human activity that she hopes fosters critical and creative thinking among her students. Eames is among the so-called AI rebels, who reject the use of artificial intelligence in classrooms.
However, she and other AI rebels face significant challenges as more California colleges and state lawmakers increasingly embrace AI as a standard learning tool for today's students.
The high school diploma and the bachelor's degree have long been considered the unquestionable benchmarks of American education. For generations they signified that an individual had followed a prescribed path, logged the required seat time, and emerged with an accredited document of accomplishment.
But that academic social contract is faltering, prompting a fresh look at what an education credential truly represents.
Often referred to as “democracy’s colleges,” community colleges were first envisioned as spaces where education nurtures individual success while advancing public purpose and social responsibility.
Today, this founding mission faces significant challenges amid growing political polarization, cultural division, and contested debates over immigration and diversity. As public discourse grows increasingly fragmented and many students confront uncertainty about their futures, the civic role of community colleges has never been more vital to the renewal of democratic life, suggests the president of the College of DuPage in this op-ed.
If you were to go strictly by White House officials, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—with its tax cuts for business—is “exactly what the country needs” to jumpstart the economy.
But if you ask healthcare leaders, the bill—often referred to as OBBBA and signed into law by President Donald Trump on Independence Day 2025—will have a debilitating effect on academic health systems, the future physicians they teach, and the people who rely on those systems for care.
.jpg?width=500&upscale=true&name=istockphoto-2198899523-612x612%20(2).jpg)
.jpg?width=500&upscale=true&name=istockphoto-2151902010-612x612%20(1).jpg)
