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.
The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid is warning hundreds of institutions that their access to federal grants and loans could be at risk if they fail to properly submit required student outcomes data by early 2027.
A newly released analysis shows that of more than 4,640 colleges and universities with programs eligible for funding, about 1,930 are either missing or have underreported some or all of the data they are required to provide under federal accountability rules. That’s about 42 percent of the institutions in the database that department officials attached to their warning.
Imagine for a moment that your bank changed the terms of a loan that you had been paying down for more than a decade. It informs you that it is increasing your payment and extending the term by five years. Any commercial bank would most likely be accused of violating basic contract law. So what happens when the federal government does it?
As part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last summer, Congress rewrote the rules for certain student loans. Since legislators are permitted to make changes, borrowers’ legal rights aren’t clear-cut—but to many of them, it still feels a lot like a broken contract.
Universities have never been busier. But is being busy the same as being alive? Australian academic Alphia Possamai-Inesedy warns that universities risk becoming "zombie institutions," bustling with new programs and artificial intelligence task forces, yet operating on outdated principles.
Possamai-Inesedy argues that higher education has failed to adapt to today's rapidly changing job market and AI-driven world. The problem isn't a lack of activity but a failure to change fundamental forms like governance, funding, and assessment. Reanimation requires a forward-looking approach, building new models to better serve learners across multiple generations, re-emphasizing liberal arts for critical skills, and engaging students in co-designing the future.
Last year, the Trump administration revoked over 1,000 student visas and paused interviews for prospective international students vying to study in the United States to incorporate social media vetting for applicants. Last month, the federal government also restricted how long international students can stay in the United States by ordering them to leave the country as soon as they finish their schooling.
And yet, these visa restrictions are not keeping international students away from some California universities.
Youth apprenticeships are growing in popularity, creating a valuable link between high school and careers while providing employers with a solution to meet key workforce needs.
In this interview, Alexandra Simon of the Center on Education and Labor at New America discusses what it takes to build youth apprenticeship programs that are rigorous, equitable, and ready to scale. The conversation examines the distinctions between youth apprenticeships and internships, why the field looks so different from state to state and community to community, and what it takes to bring employers to the table.
Wake Tech College is the largest of North Carolina's 58 community colleges. More than 70,000 students take some form of coursework at the institution every year. That includes traditional-aged college students but also a large number of working adults, dual-enrollment high schoolers, and veterans.
Recently, Wake Tech has stepped up funding and support for more apprenticeship programs. Those efforts have made Wake Tech one of the nation's leading apprenticeship colleges, partnering with more than 170 employers over the past five years to create registered apprenticeship programs across a wide range of industries. Scott Ralls, president of Wake Tech, explains how these initiatives are changing the way people think about the value of higher education.
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