Daily Lumina News 012624

Some form of postsecondary training has become an increasingly necessary stepping stone to good-paying jobs with family-sustaining wages. But for many youth in foster care, college too often remains out of reach.
Several colleges are working to bridge the gap for foster youth with investments in wraparound support programs, mentoring opportunities, basic needs assistance, scholarships, and more.

It's official: More students are opting to go to college. After years of pandemic-related declines, colleges and universities are finally seeing an upswing in student enrollment. This marks the first increase since the coronavirus pandemic upended higher education.
Undergraduate enrollment grew 1.2 percent this fall, amounting to about 176,000 more students in college than the prior year. While the news is a relief to college leaders, there are still more than a million empty seats on campuses compared to five years ago.

In many instances, mentors are changemakers, helping young people discover their potential to learn, grow, and thrive.
In this essay, Aneesh Sohoni of the college access organization One Million Degrees describes the transformative power of mentorship opportunities to help students from historically underserved backgrounds realize their college dreams.

Paying for college continues to be a challenge for many students and families. Already, 44 million Americans owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan balances. At the same time, there's strong evidence that lifetime earnings increase dramatically for those with a college degree or high-quality credential.
In this interview, Ethan Pollack of Jobs for the Future and Andrew Smalley of the National Conference of State Legislatures discuss how several innovative financial strategies are helping students pay for college—and the key role legislatures can play in facilitating those efforts.

Arizona State University announced its new partnership with OpenAI just a week ago, but there’s already an arm’s-length list of questions about the implications for higher education and workforce development.
Partnerships like ASU and OpenAI’s may defray the cost of providing students with access to AI tools, but they are expensive nonetheless—so expensive that it may be impossible for broad-access institutions to scale.

The U.S. Department of Education confirmed this week that it plans to adjust key metrics for determining how much aid students qualify for when they fill out the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
However, the announcement is doing little to ease questions and concerns from financial aid administrators who worry the change could further delay financial aid offers.