Daily Lumina News 022123

When Nichole Butler-Mooyoung was a freshman at the University of Miami in the late 1980s, she visited friends at Howard University in Washington, D.C., for one of Howard’s legendary homecomings. By the next year, she had transferred to the renowned historically Black school.
Her experience is one that an increasing number of people want to share today. After years of decline, there has been a dramatic recent increase in applications to Historically Black Colleges and Universities—up 30 percent at some schools.

Under a bill proposed this year, Colorado colleges and universities would get a special designation if they enroll a high number of students who are the first in their families to go to college.
The largely symbolic bill has fed a bigger debate about how Colorado funds its public colleges. It's also spurring a conversation about what first-generation students need to be successful.

COVID-19 has placed unprecedented demands on frontline healthcare workers, including pharmacists.
Pharmacy schools are preparing students who can address healthcare needs and help people live healthier lives. While the traditional community pharmacy still exists, the role of the pharmacist involves more than simply processing prescriptions.

When C.W. Hamilton took out his first student loan in 1977, the U.S. Department of Education wasn’t even a federal agency. The $5,250 he borrowed to complete an associate degree at Cochise College in Arizona was supposed to be an investment in his future, not a lifelong burden.
Yet after more than 40 years of payments and bouts of default, Hamilton still owes almost as much as he first borrowed. He's far from alone.

Rural communities and their universities are facing special difficulties as pandemic aid dwindles, and enrollment remains down.
That reality is feeding distrust of larger state universities, many of which have grown larger by acquiring rural outposts that end up being the first cut once leaner times hit.

For years, the University of Texas at Arlington has been recognized as a top institution for Hispanic students, both in Texas and nationally.
But some student leaders say the university needs to do more. That includes improving Hispanic representation among faculty and administration, providing more academic resources aimed at Hispanic students, and finding ways to better connect students with the resources available.