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 artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in today's classrooms—upending assessments, spurring in-class tech bans, and making enforcement seem impossible—some professors are giving up. The technology has forced some into early retirement and enraged others who struggle to prove their students have misused AI.
Ethan and Lilach Mollick see things differently. The AI revolution is here. And they believe it’s time for everyone—faculty, administrators, and students alike—to get literate.
This year, when officials at Hinds Community College reviewed the college’s workforce training programs, they were hyperfocused on a new metric for success: an index that gauges the labor market value of the credentials students earn. While the college has been helping residents in and around Jackson, Mississippi, pursue their “purpose, passion, and profession” for 100 years, it is now giving more weight to concrete data to better guide students.
Hinds and more than a dozen Mississippi community colleges are fully embracing Mississippi’s new workforce strategy, which includes hefty investments in short-term education and training programs for jobs in the fastest-growing and most stable industries.
Kendra, now 21, was born in Mexico and came to the United States with her parents as a young child. (Kendra asked to be identified by her first name only.) She knew that being in the country without authorization would make it difficult for her to land the clinical placements necessary for most medical education programs—but it didn’t stop her from trying to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor or a nurse.
Halfway through her freshman year at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Donald Trump took office for the second time. Kendra says her family feared immigration enforcement raids, warning her not to go anywhere she didn’t need to go. She did her best not to let it distract her from her studies. Then, she learned the Texas Dream Act was in jeopardy.
The textbook account of higher education access, the one most provosts can recite without notes, says that when one institution disappears, students migrate to the next institution down the road.
Several studies, however, say otherwise, largely because the schools that close are not evenly distributed across the demographic field. A 2023 study from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association found the institutions that closed had larger shares of students of color, women, and Pell Grant recipients compared to those that remained open.
Supporters of teaching high school students soft or durable skills such as communication, critical thinking, and teamwork usually emphasize how these skills can help them succeed in a job or even gain an advantage in college. Starting this fall, there’s a new, more tangible benefit—college credits.
All seven schools in the University of Maine system, plus two community colleges in Kansas, will give new students credits toward a diploma for durable skills credentials earned in high school through the nonprofit Jobs for Maine Graduates and its national spinoff GenUS, just as most colleges do for strong scores on Advanced Placement exams.
When then-Gov. Bill Haslam signed the Tennessee Promise into law in 2014, he touted the program as one that would “make a real difference for generations of Tennesseans” at zero net cost to the state. The program—the first in the United States to offer tuition-free community college statewide—covers any remaining tuition and fees for full-time students after their financial aid is applied.
A recent working paper, published in May by the National Bureau of Economic Research, agrees, showing that the program has successfully boosted college enrollment and attainment.
