Daily Lumina News 030421

Enrollment at for-profit colleges has been on the rise—increasing 5.3 percent from fall 2019 to fall 2020. That growth is concerning in light of what happened following the Great Recession. Those years also saw a surge in the number of students attending for-profit colleges, but those students were more likely to drop out, end up with low-wage jobs, and find themselves unable to repay their student loans.
The authors of a just-released report say a new classification system is needed to help students choose colleges that will serve them well.

Over the past decade, community colleges in Tennessee have implemented a wide-ranging set of tools to help students find and complete high-quality, post-high school education and training. The state has integrated high-impact practices (HIPs) into its strategic plan and made it a core component of Tennessee’s “Momentum Year” work.

Now, a new report confirms how HIPs—when designed and implemented with equitable outcomes in mind—can benefit college students across the board, especially Black, Latino, and adult learners.

Halfway through a school year like no other, BG Tucker is ringing an alarm bell. She’s contacted her elected officials, college admissions counselors, and journalists—and even messaged Michelle Obama on Instagram—to tell them: High schoolers’ path to college is more difficult than ever.
In this interview, Tucker talks about the extraordinary logistical, physical, and mental hurdles facing this year’s senior class.

This episode of The Key With Inside Higher Ed podcast introduces a new project designed to elevate the perspectives of college students in national discussions about higher education.
Matthew To, a senior at Cal Poly Pomona, joins the conversation with his thoughts on how campuses can create environments that not only invite students to speak out but make them feel heard.

The University of Idaho is one of hundreds of colleges and universities that adopted fever scanners, symptom checkers, wearable heart-rate monitors, and other new COVID-screening technologies this school year. Such tools often cost less than a more validated health intervention: frequent virus testing of all students. They also help colleges showcase their pandemic safety efforts.
But the struggle at many colleges to keep the virus at bay has raised questions about the usefulness of the technologies.

Lake Washington Institute of Technology is very likely the first college in the country that was affected by COVID-19. Officials, students, and faculty there recount experiences that are, at this point, the norm at institutions across the country—feelings of getting sick, of being scared, of running on empty.
But there also are feelings of gratitude, of hope, and lessons learned. This was not, by any means, a normal year.