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.
Stakes are high as the Trump administration looks to rewrite the rules governing accreditation in the first of two week-long rule-making sessions starting today. The overhaul could dramatically change who is responsible for academic oversight and what they evaluate when determining whether an institution should have access to federal aid.
Right-leaning think tanks applaud the changes. However, accreditation experts and student advocacy groups say the lengthy regulations, while vague and obscure, pose a major threat to the future of institutional autonomy and America’s status as the crown jewel of global higher education.
Martin Peterson made headlines earlier this year when he was banned from teaching an excerpt from Plato’s Symposium in his introductory philosophy course at Texas A&M University at College Station. That censorship was the result of a 2025 policy by the A&M system’s Board of Regents restricting what faculty members can teach on race and gender.
Peterson recently turned in his resignation. His plight captures the scope—some would say the absurdity—of the board’s oversight and reflects the deep frustration faculty members across Texas have felt as scrutiny over what they teach ramps up.
Many community college students lose nearly half their credits when they transfer—a costly, demoralizing delay that pushes too many to stop their education altogether. Community colleges already provide the first half of a bachelor’s degree. When the second half remains structurally out of reach, the promise becomes hollow.
Some schools and states are investing in efforts such as community college baccalaureate programs and partnerships as a way to develop pipelines that can help students complete their degrees and enter the workforce without debt.
This is the season when students across the country are determining their college destinations for the fall. Many, it turns out, are scouring social media sites like TikTok and Instagram for money to help them pay for it.
When searching social media, however, experts say to proceed with caution, citing a familiar adage: buyer beware. Some scholarships promoted on these sites promise to help fund degrees, but students need to make sure they are legitimate. Other red flags: The site pressures you to apply immediately or promises that you’ll definitely get a scholarship.
Colleges and universities—and the testing companies, enrollment-management firms, and other participants in the admissions-industrial complex—collectively spend billions of dollars trying to get as many of the nearly four million high school graduates each year into a postsecondary institution. It's Important work, and it's a solid investment for society, given that most jobs still require some form of postsecondary education or training.
But there's another group deserving of attention and money, as well, particularly at a time when the traditional high school-age population is set to shrink by 10 percent over the next decade. That group is the roughly 43 million Americans who went to college but failed to earn a credential.
Workforce Pell is no longer a policy idea. It’s becoming a governing reality. Congress created the program, and the U.S. Department of Education has now proposed rules for how it will work. Students can begin using the new program this July.
What happens next depends less on the law than on whether states implement it in ways that deliver results and help students move from training to work and then into longer-term advancement and opportunity.
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