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.
Higher education has spent four years managing artificial intelligence through policies, restrictions, and isolated pilots. That approach bought time, but is it still working? Today's students find themselves in a patchwork of incoherent expectations, while the labor market shifts faster than the curriculum.
In this interview at Google's Higher Ed Summit, college leaders and technology experts discuss what the higher education sector must do to move from fragmented experimentation to a coherent, campus-wide strategy that uses AI to enhance, not replace, meaningful learning.
When a student enrolls in college for the first time, they typically expect to study, graduate, and get a good job. But sometimes life gets complicated: Across the country, well over 43 million adults have attended some college but didn’t stay long enough to earn a degree or credential.
But research on adult learners doesn’t tell the complete story, argue Bridgett R. Strickler and Mathew J. Bergman. Their new book, Beyond the Degree: Stories of Adult Learner Comebacks and What They Teach Us, aims to provide a fuller picture. Specifically, the authors chronicle the “comeback” stories of 50 adult learners, highlighting their strengths as returning students and suggesting ways colleges can address common challenges they face.
Research shows that participating in education while incarcerated helps people find employment after release and reduces the likelihood they’ll return to prison. In Illinois, some people who complete educational programs can also earn credit toward an earlier release.
But access to college classes in Illinois prisons is falling further behind demand, even as the state makes progress getting people into GED and literacy programs. According to data published by the Illinois Department of Corrections at the beginning of September, the number of people on waitlists for college classes has increased by 80 percent.
With billions of public and private dollars flowing into the artificial intelligence industry, America is in the midst of a once-in-a-generation social, political, and economic transformation.
Some of the most ambitious policy proposals to steward the benefits of AI and avoid existential risks are still being shaped, but policymakers face a low-hanging fruit that can help millions of Americans prepare for the AI era and realize the promise of widespread economic opportunity: the nation's more than 1,000 community colleges. But to make that happen, federal investment is urgently needed for modern equipment, trained instructors, and enhanced employer partnerships, education watchers say.
Facing a student housing crisis and flush with a historic budget surplus, California leaders in 2021 made an unprecedented $2 billion investment to build more dorms at public universities and colleges.
Since then, universities and colleges have leveraged that funding to collectively build more than 9,000 beds for students. But higher education institutions have also encountered a distinctly California reality in trying to expand student housing: It’s costly to build in the Golden State.
Five-hundred colleges and universities in the United States now share one alarming distinction: At least 40 percent of recent students who borrowed federal loans aren't paying them back.
What's going on? One explanation is that pandemic-driven disruptions to the student loan system have left many borrowers feeling confused. But a deeper look reveals another possibility: Many of these troubled schools are private, for-profit colleges—schools that often market to low-income students and rely on federal financial aid for revenue.
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