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.
Career-Connected High-Impact Practices (HIPs) are powerful learning experiences that help students graduate on time, learn deeply, and land good jobs. The experiences, when done well, don’t just help students finish college—they help them bridge the gap between classroom learning and the real-world competencies employers value: problem solving, teamwork, communication, adaptability, and leadership.
In this video, Lumina Foundation's Jasmine Haywood and Rob Shorette explain that for HIPs to be truly effective, they must be accessible to all students, connected directly to career pathways, and designed with equity at the center.
Doctors predicted Wayne Frederick, the president of Howard University, wouldn’t live past the age of eight. He's now 54. Frederick came to the United States from Trinidad and Tobago with a dream of finding a cure for his disease, sickle cell anemia, but detoured into higher education administration.
Finding cures to debilitating diseases is one of many intangible things that higher ed does to change lives. Institutions are also the largest employers in 10 states; colleges have helped regenerate many of America’s Rust Belt centers. And higher education is undeniably a public benefit. But as concerns grow about the affordability of college, do Americans care?
After months of skirmishes with colleges, the Trump administration has proposed a treaty of sorts with nine high-profile institutions. The proposal requires participating colleges to explicitly ban considerations of race in admissions or in the awarding of scholarships, abolish departments that “belittle” conservative views, and strictly limit the percentage of international students enrolled in undergraduate programs.
Described as reminiscent of a Mafia-style ultimatum, many higher education associations and analysts are blasting the deal. But what does this compact say about the federal government and higher education's historic relationship, and how is it changing?
Colleges across the country are not blind to the demographic challenges facing higher education. A declining birth rate, an aging workforce, admissions redesigns, and disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence intensify the demand for mid-level, adaptable credentials to reskill workers quickly.
Here is where Butler University's Founder’s College shifts the ground. It builds wraparound supports—career coaching, social workers, family inclusion, and embedded apprenticeships—into the core of its structure rather than leaving them at the margins. By lowering tuition costs to nearly debt-free levels for students and building in work-integrated experiences, Founder’s College creates a system where opportunity is the design, not the exception.
Growing up, family trips for Armando Lizarraga involved going to visit his father in prison.
It wasn’t until Lizarraga got to college that he began to understand the profound impact his father’s incarceration had on his childhood and education. A pivotal moment came in 2016, when Lizarraga transferred from El Camino Community College to the University of California, Los Angeles. There, he discovered an organization called Underground Scholars, which provides support to students who are formerly incarcerated or who—like Lizarraga—have been influenced by America’s criminal justice system.
At a time when Historically Black Colleges and Universities have experienced massive turnover, David K. Wilson at Morgan State University is an outlier: He has led the institution for the past 15 years.
Wilson's leadership style showcases a vision built on trust, innovation, and community. In this interview, he reflects on being one of the longest-serving HBCU presidents in the country, the importance of staying relevant, and why students are at the center of everything he does.
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