Daily Lumina News 093022

A barbed wire fence wraps around the Logan Correctional Center in central Illinois. But from the inside, the education building looks like a regular school. There are chairs, whiteboards, a few posters on the walls.
Higher education programs in prison help keep people from returning after being released. Most college programs are at men's prisons. At the Logan Correctional Center, the focus is on women.

When President Joe Biden announced plans to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loans for eligible Americans, the U.S. Department of Education didn’t definitively say whether privately held federal student loans would be included in the plan.
Now, those borrowers have an answer: Their loans will not be forgiven.

Being a student at an Ivy League institution means having the upper hand. Any academic or career-related resource imaginable is available, right at one's fingertips, says Sofia Barnett, a sophomore and first-generation student at Brown University.
But for first-generation, low-income students, socially engaging with peers whose lives are dramatically different can be a paralyzing concern. In this essay, Barnett describes the challenges of being a low-income student at an Ivy League school.

What helps community college students stay in college? Connections with others, engaging instructors, support services, and clarity about their academic goals and what they need to achieve them.
A new report from the Center for Community College Student Engagement shares the experiences of community college students and the supports they say can keep them on track to a degree.

Even as some current teachers are leaving the education workforce—or, at the very least, considering it—plenty of would-be teachers are opting for other career paths, creating a worrisome landscape now and in the future.
One fledgling effort, based out of Pittsburgh, aims to reinvigorate the current educator workforce while also looking ahead to build a pipeline of enthusiastic eventual educators. And in this case, the work is specifically focused on Black educators.

The college price tag remains a primary obstacle for young adults who do not attend or complete college, but it is not the only barrier to overcome.
A just-released report says students want additional support, including programs that fit around their schedules, free laptops, internet access, the availability of academic counselors to help them navigate which classes to take, and career counselors to aid in their job search.