Lumina Foundation is committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025.
With today marking the first anniversary of Hamas’s deadly attack on Israeli civilians and the beginning of the war in Gaza, numerous colleges are aiming to commemorate and honor the lives lost in the Middle East over the past year while also preparing for a new wave of protests.
But after a year in which many colleges were roiled by demonstrations and received backlash from all sides of the issue, commemorating the tragedy has proven fraught for some, rekindled conflicts for others—and, in at least one case, prompted legal action.
Currently, the higher education system that Americans want and need for themselves and their children is not delivering. That’s where the differing perspectives on value and confidence in recent polling come together. In higher education, we can have both high value and high confidence. But it will take work.
It begins by rethinking how we support and structure higher education and by helping colleges and universities address the cracks in the system to apply lessons about what works for today’s students and the workforce of the future, writes Lumina Foundation's Courtney Brown in this perspective piece.
Education policies on their own cannot solve the problem of declining job quality in the United States.
But bringing Career and Technical Education and Registered Apprenticeship systems together so that every American high school and community college student can enter a high-quality apprenticeship program that prepares them for a family-sustaining career is one way to align education policies with the larger goal of building more pathways into the middle class, experts say.
Ten years ago, Sara Guttierez dropped out of college because she could not make the finances work. It was a hard, stressful decision, one that left her feeling "lost and uncertain" about the future. But today, Guttierez is back in school, studying business administration at Cape Cod Community College and serving as a student trustee.
The change responsible for giving Guttierez a renewed sense of hope and possibility is the launch of no-cost community college in Massachusetts, a new option authorized in the most recent state budget.
Research shows that a bachelor’s degree remains essential to access well-paying jobs. Unfortunately, low transfer rates from community colleges to universities are a major roadblock.
However, community colleges cannot solve the transfer problem alone. Instead, universities must shift from thwarting transfer to aiding transfer, with both taking shared responsibility to improve college transfer, say these two professors.
This is normally a big week for millions of students across the United States hoping to go to college. It's when the Free Application for Federal Student Aid is supposed to open to families. Around early October, there's usually buzz and excitement because the idea of college starts to feel real.
But last year's FAFSA was fraught with issues and technical glitches, and another delay this year has left many students fearful and uncertain about their future.
