Daily Lumina News 011722

Penny Fox didn’t finish high school. A single mom of two kids, the jobs that she can find tend to be in retail, at stores like Walmart and Home Depot.
But Fox wants more—for herself and her children. She wants a career. A program called Pathways for Single Moms is helping her get one.

College promise programs that pay for local high school students’ tuition have multiplied throughout the country. Some 400 such programs exist nationwide, with 10 in Texas alone.
But the Alamo Promise provides much more than free tuition. Additional support services include low-cost healthcare, food pantries, daycare for student-parents, funding for unexpected emergencies, and more.

Elizabeth City State University is a small historically Black college located in one of the most geographically isolated regions of North Carolina. Less than five years ago, the institution was on the verge of collapse.
It would take something unorthodox to save Elizabeth City State University: a first-of-its-kind college-affordability program called NC Promise. Today, the program could be a blueprint for rescuing struggling public institutions—if it lasts.

Among his many roles, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an educator. Though his most famous messages came from the pulpit and the podium, the civil rights leader also briefly led in the classroom and often spoke on education.
Dr. King cared deeply about the role of education in social justice. On this federal holiday celebrating his life and legacy, activists and scholars share their thoughts on whether education is fulfilling Dr. King's vision today.

In the fall of 1959, Ciro Scala, just out of high school, was commuting to a clerical job in Times Square from Staten Island and also going to City College. Sometimes, he would get home past midnight.
The commute and work ultimately proved too much, causing Scala to drop out. Fifty years later, he returned, earning two degrees and the respect of younger students.

College is resuming this month across America in a tense and bumpy sequence of openings—in person here, remote there—and shadowed everywhere by the threat of the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, students and professors worry about the public health risks of staying open and the educational risks of pausing.