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.
General education courses have come under criticism lately from those concerned about the cost of college, others who argue they are obsolete in the age of artificial intelligence, and even politicians alleging they promote leftist ideologies.
In this interview, Andrew Delbanco, the Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University and president of the Teagle Foundation, discusses how humanities-based general education courses can provide short- and long-term benefits to students—from ethical questions on the job to deeper self-reflection throughout life. He also argues that a core education is one of the rare ideas that could find advocates across the political spectrum.
For too many learners, especially working adults, the transfer journey from community college to a four-year institution is far less dependable than it should be. It’s confusing, inconsistent, and costly for those who depend on it, wasting time, credits, money, and momentum. What should serve as a bridge often transforms into a barrier.
A report from the LEARN Commission explains why. It’s a failure of learning mobility or the system colleges use to evaluate and apply learning across institutions. That system is fragmented, opaque, and labor-intensive. Decisions are scattered across departments, with little attention to student outcomes.
Students deciding this week whether to attend graduate school in the fall are navigating the end of a 20-year era of student loan policy. More students will need to find private loans, making access to credit an important factor in determining who can afford graduate programs.
An analysis of borrowing and credit history data from 2015 to 2024 by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve found that 28 percent of graduate students taking out loans would exceed today’s new limits, and about four in 10 of them would have trouble getting supplemental private loans without a co-signer.
Colleen Reed, an educational consultant, has heard high schoolers make “odd”—and misguided—declarations about institutions. “This school doesn’t have what I want.” “It’s not in a safe neighborhood.” “There’s not much diversity on campus.” “There’s no hockey team.” (There was.)
These statements aren’t one-offs but the result of one of the latest ways students are using artificial intelligence: to research and vet prospective colleges. Whether it’s an AI summary that pops up in response to a search engine query or a conversation with a chatbot, AI-supported tools are influencing more students’ college searches. And the insights those tools provide—accurate or not—can be consequential.
As the Trump administration works to codify what it describes as a “revolutionary” overhaul to the nation’s college oversight system, it must first consider feedback from the groups that could be affected by such sweeping regulatory changes.
And while certain groups, like taxpayers and new accreditors, are represented on the committee that is reviewing the administration’s proposal this week, others—including college administrators, civil rights groups, and existing accreditors—have fewer seats at the table compared to previous rounds of talks.
Public universities across Texas have instituted sweeping changes to course teachings and offerings in recent months, from canceling gender studies programs to directing faculty to sign a pledge not to indoctrinate students.
The changes are a mark of the growing influence state politicians have over public universities following the passage of a new state law in 2025. Meanwhile, some professors and students express concern that restricting classroom content will diminish the quality of students' degrees and make it harder for universities to recruit and retain faculty.
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