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.
High-quality learning beyond high school has the power to transform lives. Better-educated people earn more, are more active in their communities, and even live longer. The question now is how can the higher education system serve more people better?
In this interview, Lumina Foundation's Jamie Merisotis offers insight from his decades of experience as an author, policy innovator, and philanthropist on the future of education and work—and his vision for a world where learning and human potential drive progress and opportunity for everyone.
Texas State Technical College is striving to fill the state’s workforce gaps, but college leaders say the institution has been hampered by out-of-date facilities and a lack of funding to expand. Unlike the state’s community colleges, it’s not allowed to levy taxes or issue bonds. Despite this, the institution is overflowing, with 45 out of its 127 programs operating at full capacity this semester across 11 campuses.
But this past election cycle, Texas voters gave the institution a rare gift for a technical college—an $850 million endowment. College leaders say it’ll offer a much-needed boost in filling the state’s workforce needs.
More than 13,500 adults have already re-enrolled in college thanks to New Jersey's statewide engagement and coaching program.
Launched in 2023 in partnership with ReUp Education, a national leader in re-engaging adults who’ve dropped out of college before earning a degree, the program is aimed at the roughly 840,000 New Jersey adults who fit into the Some College, No Degree population. Now, a new report is documenting the initial success of the program in helping the state achieve its goal of 65 percent postsecondary credential attainment among working-age citizens.
For low-income and first-generation students, finding a way to and through college can be especially challenging. The main reason for that is lack of familiarity with the unwritten rules of college life, including things like office hours, networking, and balancing work and academics.
Messina College aims to change that. Located on the Brookline campus of Boston College, Messina is the university’s first two-year residential program. The school takes a new approach to investing in student success, providing a variety of financial, housing, and academic supports while creating relationships and connections—something first-generation students need to thrive.
Now that interest in understanding, using, and learning to build artificial intelligence technologies is soaring, schools are racing to meet the rising demand from students and industry. In the process, AI has become the hot new college major.
Over the last two years, dozens of U.S. colleges and universities have announced new AI departments, majors, minors, courses, interdisciplinary concentrations, and other programs. And that momentum shows no sign of letting up, experts say.
In recent years, at least 26 states, along with private companies like IBM and Accenture, began stripping college degree requirements and focusing hiring practices on applicants’ skills. Seven states showed double-digit percentage increases in job listings without a degree requirement between 2019 and 2024, and a 2022 report found degree requirements disappearing from private sector listings, too.
But less evidence has emerged of employers actually hiring nondegreed job seekers in substantial numbers, and a crumbling economic outlook could stall momentum.
