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.
Students, researchers, faculty, and leadership at universities and colleges across the United States are grappling with drastic short- and long-term impacts “for decades to come” caused by funding freezes, cuts, and executive orders from the Trump administration.
The changes and threats have incited hiring freezes, layoffs and furloughs, cuts in graduate admissions, cancellations of job offers, and institutions scaling back the amount of research they conduct.
The number of people enrolling in educator preparation programs in North Carolina has been falling for years. Now the number of people completing the programs is plummeting—a troubling sign for a state that struggles to hire and retain public school teachers.
Public and private four-year colleges largely house educator preparation programs. The drop in people completing the programs underscores ongoing challenges to the teaching profession in a state that is increasingly having to fill its ranks by recruiting educators from other states, countries, and even professions.
Ideas about online learning have changed dramatically in recent years. Virtual courses used to be the exception in higher education. Now, they’re an expectation. As of the fall of 2023, 54.3 percent of college students were taking at least one online course, according to an analysis of the latest U.S. Department of Education data.
Put another way: Without the 2020 upheaval of COVID-19, colleges likely wouldn’t have reached that level of online enrollment until around 2030.
In his latest executive action, President Donald Trump directed the U.S. Department of Education to limit eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
The order, issued late last week, would require the Education Department to go through a complex and lengthy process known as negotiated rulemaking, so the directive doesn’t change anything immediately. However, the changes could lead to the denial of student loan forgiveness for literally thousands of nonprofit employees involved in activist work opposed by the president.
Teachers, parents, and students may be wondering what might change on college and K-12 campuses amid the bluster from the Trump administration about shuttering the U.S. Department of Education. Already, the president's broader, rapid-fire agenda has disrupted major segments of the American education system.
So can the president, technically, shutter the agency? Here’s where things stand.
In her second year at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Kristen O’Brien observed a behind-the-scenes challenge facing students: food insecurity. About 47 percent of the school's more than 8,700 enrolled students have some level of food insecurity, according to the university’s 2024 spring survey.
Now, as a third-year student, O’Brien is piloting a food recovery program that repackages leftovers to give students access to free and nutritious meals.
