Daily Lumina News 013020

Since 2015, more than 25 community colleges throughout the United States have been offering college programs in prisons funded by the Department of Education’s Second Chance Pell Grant experiment.
This episode of In the Know With ACCT features several of these efforts—plus insight from two students who say in-prison programs transformed their lives.

After getting expelled from two middle schools and “doing literally nothing all day” at a Brooklyn high school for aspiring artists, Stephanie Gaweda decided to turn her life around. But her guidance counselor said there was no way she would be able to graduate by age 21.
Gaweda’s math teacher had another idea: a transfer high school. The schools, which emphasize a high counselor-to-student ratio and paid internships, give students who otherwise wouldn’t graduate a second chance.

In the wake of Operation Varsity Blues, higher education must grapple with questions about the meaning of merit, the role that wealth plays in the admissions process, and how selective colleges can enroll more low-income and first-generation students.
The admissions scandal shook the public’s trust. At a recent national conference, enrollment leaders discussed winning it back.

It’s quiet in the spare bedroom of Maria Garcia’s Antioch duplex as she sits down to study. Garcia, 24, will spend the day on her laptop, poring over a lesson on encrypted communication. It’s one more step on a path she hopes will lead to a cybersecurity certificate from Calbright College—California’s new online community college—and a job that pays a living wage.
But despite her swift progress, Garcia is troubled. California’s first-in-the-nation online community college now has 450 students—with no full-time faculty, no CEO, and no political champion. What will Calbright's future be?