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.
Concerns about the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher education have loomed over many conferences this year. But as a group of just over 600 state officials, policy analysts, and nonprofit leaders gathered last week in an old train depot–turned–Marriott hotel for the annual State Higher Education Executive Officers Association conference, a different feeling was in the air.
This time, leaders still acknowledged the president’s view of colleges and universities as “the enemy,” but they expressed confidence in the mission and power of academia in democracy.
President Donald Trump wants to collect more admissions data from colleges and universities to make sure they’re complying with a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended race-conscious affirmative action. And he wants that data now.
But data experts and higher education scholars warn that any new admissions data is likely to be inaccurate, impossible to interpret, and ultimately misused by policymakers. That’s because Trump’s own policies have left the statistics agency inside the U.S. Department of Education with a skeleton staff and not enough money, expertise, or time to create this new dataset.
There are many differences between Carmina Garcia and Mahogany-Ann Fowler. One attends a community college; the other goes to a regional university. Garcia lives in Arizona; Fowler is based in Pennsylvania. Garcia studies nursing; Fowler wants to be an architect.
However, the women share two key similarities that place them in difficult situations. Both are moms of young kids. And both are unsure what they'll do in the fall if a federal child care program they've come to rely on disappears about a month into the semester, as their colleges have warned.
Autistic college students are experiencing anxiety and depression at significantly higher rates than their non-autistic peers, according to new research from Binghamton University that analyzed data from nearly 150,000 undergraduates across 342 institutions nationwide.
The study represents one of the most comprehensive examinations to date of mental health challenges facing autistic students in higher education—a population that researchers say has been historically underrepresented in academic research despite growing enrollment numbers.
As the Trump administration seeks to roll back or end federal investment in clean energy technologies, community college leaders may be wondering what impact these changes will have on the future of sustainability initiatives and green jobs training programs.
A recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects strong job growth in occupations related to renewable energy sources and conserving natural resources in the coming years. For instance, the number of technician jobs for servicing wind turbines is expected to increase by 68 percent from 2020 to 2030, creating 4,700 new positions in this field. Researchers predict a 52 percent increase in solar photovoltaic installers during this period, resulting in 6,100 additional jobs.
Aspiring early childhood educators who want to pursue undergraduate degrees next year might lose out on federal loans they need to afford their studies. That’s because, ironically, the profession does not seem to pay many of its workers enough to meet new loan standards set by the Trump administration.
Shutting off federal loans for these students could turn people away from the profession altogether at a time when teachers are burnt out and leaving classrooms and daycares, early education experts say.
