Daily Lumina News 010322

More well-paid jobs require at least some education or training beyond high school. Eager providers, including universities and for-profit companies that offer training and education, are responding with a dizzying number of credential programs.
That leaves many employers weighing the quality of those education credentials on applicants’ resumes and transcripts—and whether or not they’re even real.

President Joe Biden’s decision to extend the student loan payment pause until May 2022 is both a surprise and a game-changer for student loan borrowers.
And while many borrowers and advocates may be elated with the news, others are less enthused. What they really want is wide-scale student loan cancellation.

In her conversations with students, the new vice provost for student success at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville kept hearing about a familiar challenge facing Black and Latino men: the feeling of isolation on campus.
Amber Williams and her team took action with the creation of the UT Success Academy, an academic, professional, and social program designed to advance the success of Black and Latino men in college and beyond.

The 259 seniors in the Downtown Magnets High School's class of 2022 don’t take college for granted. They are the children of low-wage cooks and waitresses, parking valets and factory workers, caretakers and security guards. Their parents are mostly immigrants.
They also represent the new generation of students reshaping the face of higher education in California: young people with lower family incomes, less parental education, and far more racial and ethnic diversity than college applicants of the past.

The march to college is getting pandemic-adjusted. More students are taking gap years. Others are working more hours at jobs, earning money that remains critical to families.
The situation is making counselors reconsider how to help students evaluate many different paths and opportunities beyond high school.

Anne Laurie Pierre's senior year in high school wasn't easy. The recent graduate battled the mental exhaustion of remote learning, working extra shifts to help her family make ends meet, and the death of her father.
Pierre persevered to become the first in her family to go to college after being accepted to Howard University. Read more about Pierre and others who pushed through hardship on their paths forward in this photo essay.