In the fall of 2019, after years of declining enrollment, higher education institutions in New Mexico were seeking a new way to attract adult learners in the hopes of matching the state’s peak head count of around 154,000 postsecondary students, last achieved in 2010. A year later, the state made great gains toward doing just that after establishing an…

Two-thirds of the 3.3 million college students eligible for federal food assistance in 2020 didn’t access it, the Government Accountability Office found in a report released Wednesday. Requested by Democratic lawmakers in 2021, the report comes as Congress is in the midst of updating the Farm Bill, a sprawling piece of legislation that sets policy for agriculture and…

A growing body of research has shown that student persistence and college completion are strongly connected to and determined by whether students’ basic needs are being met. But college administrators are hamstrung by insufficient funding to fully address basic needs insecurity on their campuses and help students in a comprehensive way. A new policy brief by Higher Learning Advocates (HLA),…

Colleges and universities in at least eight states could lose a total of between $970 million and $1.3 billion in scholarship funding under a new rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The states have been misusing funds from the federal welfare program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families that were intended to help low-income parents on…