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.
It's been a whirlwind few months for higher education, from massive cuts at the U.S. Department of Education to challenges involving international student enrollment to looming threats around federal research funding.
As President Trump marks 100 days in the White House, this podcast examines the broader, longer-term implications of these shifts for colleges and what leaders can do to nurture positive campus culture during challenging times.
Community colleges have been dealing with an unprecedented phenomenon: fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds. While it has caused chaos at many colleges, some Southwestern College faculty feel their leaders haven’t done enough to curb the crisis.
Ever since the pandemic forced schools to go virtual, the number of online classes offered by community colleges has exploded. That has been a welcome development for many students who value the flexibility online classes offer. But it has also given rise to the incredibly invasive rise of bot students now besieging community college professors like Elizabeth Smith.
A great match can accomplish great things, which is the intent of a partnership between the Association of Community College Trustees and the National Head Start Association.
Specifically, the five-year effort is working to put more Head Start facilities on community college campuses, thereby addressing the need for high-quality early childhood education and the barriers that prevent many student parents from completing their degrees. So far, the multigenerational approach shows encouraging early results.
In the laboratory, Sara Blick-Nitko searches for treatments for cancer. But before she could become a scientist, she had to find what deaf people like her call the "Deaf Scientist Pipeline."
The federal grants that make up that pipeline helped her earn a Ph.D., begin her post-doctoral research, and overcome the multiple barriers that historically keep deaf students from becoming scientists. Now, though, the path that worked for Blick-Nitko has come to an abrupt end.
When Karl Molden, a sophomore at Harvard University from Vienna, learned that the Trump administration had abruptly restored thousands of international students’ ability to legally study in the United States, he says he did not feel reassured. He is not alone in that worry.
After all, immigration officials have insisted that they could still terminate students’ legal status, even in the face of legal challenges, and the administration has characterized the matter as only a temporary reprieve.
House Republicans are embarking on wholesale changes that could shake up the way students pay for college while advancing a conservative agenda to curtail the federal role in education financing.
If new proposals from the Republicans stand, the changes could make borrowing for college pricier and limit who can get Pell Grants, which deliver vital financial aid to lower-income households. The legislation would also restrict access to college financial aid, lowering loan limits for parents and some students.
