Daily Lumina News 021521

Plumbers and electricians are essential workers with well-paying jobs. And yet skilled trades face worker shortages and struggle to recruit young people.
This episode of Where We Live explores vocational education as a pathway to a viable career. The conversation includes perspectives from a teacher and a student, plus New America's Brent Parton weighs in on what the Biden administration can do to build up a new generation of tradespeople.

As the pandemic continues to disrupt the lives of college students, student-parents are scrambling daily to meet class deadlines, earn a paycheck, and oversee their children's lessons. And they are weathering this exhausting academic year without the in-person study groups, tutoring sessions, and campus resources they typically rely on.
Now more than ever, advocates say, colleges and universities must prioritize the roughly 1 in 5 undergraduates who are raising children. Student-parents are far less likely to finish college than others, with just 37 percent graduating within six years of enrollment. The obstacles they face, from child care affordability to economic insecurity, have only been exacerbated by the pandemic.

A newly launched national campaign from the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers is calling for large-scale federal investments to make public colleges and universities more accessible to all students.
In addition to addressing tuition costs, institutional funding, and student debt relief, the "New Deal for Higher Education" platform supports reforms related to racial injustice and inequities, labor practices, technical and vocational education, campus childcare, and more.

The demand for technology talent is unprecedented. This need is coming at a time when the percentage of college degrees awarded to women is near an all-time high of 57 percent. Yet, less than 20 percent of graduates in computer science and information technology are women.
Where is the disconnect? Tech industry veteran Judith Spitz says it’s about barriers to access, misinformation about what it means to work in tech, and the notion that the industry is for men only.

Fall enrollment has declined by nearly 30 percent at Middlesex Community College since 2013, with a third of that drop in the past year alone. Many students want to come back, but say they are out of work and worried about food and housing.
Those problems of poverty, painful before, are acute now. Education leaders, however, resist the idea that low-income families no longer see the value of higher education. But now more than ever, students need help with basic needs—and community colleges need more state support.

When the pandemic hit, the world witnessed a spike in cyberthreats. From health information, to banking institutions, to national security assets, the demand for workers skilled to keep data safe is enormous.
Molly Elise Young is a cybersecurity specialist with Akamai Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her mission is to make sure that a life lived online is safe and secure. Watch this video to learn more about Young and the skills needed for a career in cybersecurity.