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.
This month, the University of Florida's Board of Trustees voted to appoint Stuart Bell as UF’s next president, tapping the former University of Alabama leader to head one of the nation’s top-ranked public research universities. But Bell’s appointment has been far from smooth. Fights over Bell’s diversity, equity, and inclusion record—and a power struggle between two governing boards—have marred the process for weeks.
At first glance, the skirmish at UF might seem like a repeat of old battles over DEI, but the drama unfolding in Florida is part of a deeper story that’s happening at public universities across the nation where politics, money, and egos play an outsized role in how decisions are made.
AI use in the workplace is booming. In April, Gallup found that 13 percent of American employees use AI daily in their jobs—up from 8 percent about a year prior—and 50 percent of employees use AI at least a few times per year. Meanwhile, AI’s capabilities are advancing rapidly. At this rate, the versions of ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude that students become familiar with during their freshman year will be very different from the AI models available when they graduate.
As colleges grapple with the task of preparing students for increasingly AI-integrated careers, some faculty members are gaining experience by stepping out of the classroom and into the workforce.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the office of Kansas’ attorney general on Wednesday asked a federal judge to strike down a state law allowing certain undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition rates.
The joint motion came just hours after the DOJ sued Kansas over the decades-old law, marking the 10th lawsuit the federal agency has filed over such state policies. A judge would need to sign off on the motion to invalidate the law. If approved, Kansas will be the fifth state to side with the Trump administration in court to successfully strike down its own in-state tuition laws.
Brendan Sorsby bet more than $90,000 on games while he quarterbacked the football teams at Indiana University and the University of Cincinnati. Court records indicate that he began gambling in high school at casinos with friends and started experimenting with sports-betting apps that allowed him to make wagers on his phone before he was even 21—the legal age. Sorsby said introductory offers enticed him to deposit a few dollars and receive hundreds in free betting credits.
Sorsby’s story isn’t unique among college students. Now, with the spotlight on the former Texas Tech quarterback, higher ed has an opportunity to raise awareness of gambling risks for the entire student body.
For the past year, Indiana has been working on an ambitious new apprenticeship system for high schoolers, modeled on the Swiss one.
Almost all of the pieces to make it successful are in place: support from the governor, a revamped high school diploma that emphasizes work-based learning, more than $25M in funding from the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, and multiple trips to Switzerland to show business leaders and educators how it can be done. But the final piece is still uncertain: Will enough employers participate?
It’s been one year since the passage of the Advance Higher Education Act, commonly known as Senate Bill 1. Ohio Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland), chief architect of Ohio’s law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion on college campuses, marked the occasion this week by disputing opponent claims and promising more legislation on the horizon to change higher education in Ohio.
University of Cincinnati professor Stephen Mockabee offered a very different view of college life after one year under S.B.-1. Now, says Mockabee, faculty feel pressured to leave certain topics like race, gender, or climate change out of the classroom because they are considered politically controversial, even if there is little controversy within an academic discipline.
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