Daily Lumina News 040523

Community college students, many of whom are adult learners, continue to face a number of challenges in their pursuit of postsecondary education and training. That includes family obligations, access to childcare, and housing and food insecurities.
More community colleges are stepping up to help with expanded community partnerships, targeted advising, transportation vouchers, and other creative solutions.

Today, six out of the seven major institutional accreditors are developing ways to assess how colleges serve historically underrepresented students.
Accreditors see the application of DEI standards as an extension of efforts to improve student outcomes. Still, the move to require more-specific attention to and evidence of DEI is not without its challenges.

Setting community college students up for success can result in institutional partnerships. That's why, in 2016, the University of Dayton joined forces with Sinclair Community College to provide a more accessible route to degree completion.
The effort, called UD Sinclair Academy, offers 100 degree paths and has a 96 percent graduation rate.

In a move to boost sagging community college enrollment and address student demand for job-ready education opportunities, Los Angeles Community College campuses are experimenting with a new genre of courses taught in the native language of students—Spanish, Korean, Russian.
Students can take courses to become automotive technicians, or improve their understanding of child development and computer skills.

Americans now hold $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. Nearly two-thirds of that money—at least $929 billion—is owed by women.
Women, and women of color in particular, are paid less than similarly educated men for the same jobs. They often go back to college to bolster their resumes and earn a salary that can support all their expenses. And they borrow more in the process.

The federal Pell Grant program, one of the most well-known ways to help low-income students pay for college, can only be applied to college programs that last longer than 15 weeks. But some advocates have long wanted to offer more flexibility for students taking shorter programs.
The idea of the short-term Pell has broad bipartisan support and is now the subject of multiple proposals introduced in Congress.