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 estab...

      WASHINGTON, D.C. – Higher Learning Advocates (HLA) has long promoted the needs of today’s students throughout the country in higher education, and now a redefined future is on the horizon. In May, HLA announced a transition is underway, uniting its federal policy and coalition wings to operate exclusively under a known ...

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 po...

If you’ve heard the phrase “today’s students” used to describe the many adults and other so-called nontraditional students who make up a huge share of the population now attending college, you’ve got Julie Peller to thank for the nomenclature. She helped to make the term popular while at the Lumina Foundation and then at Higher…

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...

A new workforce development scholarship program in Idaho is generating more interest than originally projected, and state officials say the response reflects the demand for education and training needed to fill jobs in the region and an opportunity to get and keep young people employed in the state. The LAUNCH program offers Idaho high school gr...

As Congress gears up to head home for the holiday season, proponents who have hoped to see a breakthrough on the long-running issue of expanding Pell Grants to career-training programs lasting fewer than 15 weeks have received an early gift—a bipartisan deal in the House. Key lawmakers in both parties have wrangled for years over the expansion,...

Before filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, applicants must first determine their dependency status – which dictates whose information needs to be submitted on the form. An undergraduate student can’t simply choose to file as an independent on the FAFSA, the application that most schools use to determine fin...

At 19, Elizabeth Clews knew attending community college while balancing a full-time job and caring for a newborn would be hard. But she wanted to give it a shot. After a few months, the single mom, who had just exited the foster care system, realized she wasn’t doing well enough to pass her classes at…

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 h...

Inside Higher Ed published a new special report, “Modernizing Postsecondary Policy to Better Support Adult Learners,” with insight provided by HLA’s Julie Peller, executive director, and Amy Ellen Duke-Benfield, managing director of policy and research. This free, print-on-demand report explores how current federal and state policies can ...

Fourteen thousand students dropped out of the Austin Community College District in Texas during the last two academic years. But the institution of more than 36,000 students has a plan to get some of them back. Supported by a $770,765 Education Department grant, that plan involves reaching out to students and connecting them with career…