Daily Lumina News 090822

As an advocate for people struggling to repay their college loans, Claudio Martinez followed every step of the process that culminated with President Joe Biden's student loan relief plan.
But there was one thing Martinez didn’t hear during the lead-up to Biden’s decision: any discussion of responsibility on the part of colleges for the poor return that many borrowers got for their investment.

College affordability is at the forefront of higher education conversations these days, especially with the Biden administration's student debt release initiative.
Pell Grants help make the dream of college possible for low-income students. Over the past 50 years, more than 80 million people have used Pell Grants to pay for their higher education expenses. And they exist, in large part, because of the efforts of one Black woman who often goes unmentioned: Lois Dickson Rice.

Even as many colleges try to recreate some version of a pre-pandemic environment on campus, they’re also navigating a host of other issues. This fall, they’re grappling with student-housing shortages, facing questions about abortion rights, and struggling to support students who can’t afford their basic needs.
A new analysis offers a snapshot of the promise and unexpected challenges of this academic year.

As the fall semester begins at colleges and universities across the country, students, parents, and higher ed health officials are grappling with how to navigate new restrictions on reproductive care.
In this interview, students discuss how the post-Roe landscape impacts their lives and choices as they go back to school.

Nowhere is the abuse of poor and working-class students more acute, and the potential to help them get ahead greater, than in vocational certificate programs—the kind provided by community colleges and for-profit trade schools.
Washington Monthly was the first to rank these programs, in 2018, and it does so again this year. The idea is that highlighting the good ones and exposing the predatory ones will spur policymakers to better support the former and crack down on the latter.

Even before the pandemic, big-name colleges and universities were getting serious about online education. COVID-19 pushed that already-growing trend even further—and it's not letting up.
But why don’t these well-known universities just build their own online campuses instead of buying institutions with a very different faculty and model? And what does it say about the future of online education? The new chancellor of UMass Global weighs in.