Daily Lumina News 021022

The U.S. Department of Education released details this week of its proposed “gainful employment” rule—a measure that seeks to hold for-profit colleges and nondegree programs at nonprofit colleges accountable for the earnings of their graduates.
If the regulation takes effect, it would compare students’ earnings after graduation to their student-loan debts. Programs whose graduates earn too little over a three-year period could lose access to federal student aid.

Opportunity@Work is on a mission to rewire the labor market so that everyone has the opportunity to succeed based on their skills and talent rather than just degrees.
The group's Papia Debroy talks about those opportunities—plus the organization's new report—on this episode of Work in Progress.

Minnesota’s community colleges have gone to great lengths to expand access to campus food pantries to help students struggling with food insecurity. Advocates hope that addressing basic needs will help more students enroll in college and complete their degrees.
But for many students, help with housing remains elusive. During the pandemic, federal COVID-19 relief funds enabled students to weather housing emergencies. Now, that funding is coming to a close.

Twenty years ago, the phrase “inclusive excellence” was introduced in higher education. Today, colleges and universities use it to describe, among other things, strategic plans and job titles.
But what does the phrase actually mean? And are colleges actually acting on the values of inclusive excellence?

Pell Grant eligibility can improve lives and fundamentally alter how we rehabilitate people who commit crimes. But without changes to eligibility criteria, few will benefit.
Indeed, without an adequate pool of people who can pay for classes, educational opportunities will remain limited. And because prisoners cannot move to places where opportunities do exist, many otherwise eligible and motivated people will go unserved.

A week after a series of bomb threats against Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the country, public officials and university presidents are speaking out against what they characterize as a racist attack against the schools and their students.
"They are disappointed. They are traumatized," Alcorn State University President Felecia Nave says of the school's students and staff in the wake of the bomb threats. "[But] they're resilient."