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.
As colleges and universities face growing demand for mental health support and new questions about where students are turning for help, many campus leaders are being forced to rethink what student success actually means and requires. At the center of this shift is a fundamental question: What responsibility do colleges and universities have in ensuring student well-being?
In this interview, New York University's Zoe Ragouzeos explains how campuses can move beyond counseling centers to embed student well-being into the entire college experience so that learners persist and thrive.
The University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom began slowly. Created by legislation passed last year, the center offered two one-credit classes this spring—one on American culture and one on political and economic systems—but they saw a combined enrollment of less than 20 students.
That is about to change. This week, Iowa’s budget bill became law and includes a provision requiring all students completing an undergraduate degree at the state’s flagship to take six credit hours, or two classes, through the center.
Last week, Kevin Guskiewicz took a pay cut to leave Michigan State University’s presidency for the top job at Clemson University. On his way out, he had harsh criticism for the institution’s trustees, a group of eight elected officials who recently faced accusations of dysfunction and backbiting. It’s the latest example of how partisan governing boards, willing to assert their authority in new ways, are making presidents uncomfortable.
Is Michigan State’s board broken? And what does the drama unfolding there tell us about the broader state of higher education governance?
In California, more than 5.9 million adults under age 65 have some college credit but no degree. Many of these former students left college because of financial pressures, work obligations, family and caregiving responsibilities, and poor mental health or stress.
California Reconnect, created in 2022, was designed to help these individuals—through personalized coaching and support systems—reenroll and complete their degrees. Today, the program is showing promise, achieving an overall reenrollment rate of 8.15 percent across a pool of more than 25,000 learners—nearly three times California’s statewide average of 2.9 percent and the national average of 2.7 percent.
Mergers aren’t easy. In the corporate world, 70 percent of them fail to deliver on their financial promises. In higher education, the deals can be even more complex. According to some strategy experts, only 20 to 50 percent of mergers in postsecondary education succeed. What derails most of them is a lack of strategic and financial alignment or cultural friction. These deals are never a merger of equals.
Two higher ed leaders who pulled them off share what nobody told them going in.
A new trend is happening in higher education: States are using “low enrollment,” “low value,” and budget efficiency to eliminate academic programs. But if you look closely at the majors and programs that states are cutting—humanities, arts, social sciences, identity-based studies, languages, and educator pipelines—you’ll see a certain pattern unfold.
In this op-ed, Wil Del Pilar of The Education Trust argues that these cuts are falling hardest on the very fields that help us understand the world, question power, preserve and understand culture, and prepare students for careers in teaching, counseling, healthcare, and public service.
