Daily Lumina News 032524

Carlos Sanchez is the executive director of Casa Latina, a new bilingual college program at Davenport University that caters to students exactly like the one Sanchez was 25 years ago when he immigrated to Grand Rapids, Michigan, from Mexico City.
Sanchez hopes the program will help many highly trained or qualified people who are underemployed because they believe their English isn’t good enough to earn a college degree.

After the shaky rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, Anthony Jones and his team at Bethune-Cookman University immediately went to the drawing board to create a strategy to educate students on the changes and delays. Now, they’re sending emails. They’re holding webinars. They’re on call for questions.
Bethune-Cookman’s extra efforts mirror those of other Historically Black Colleges and Universities nationwide as they navigate the new FAFSA. HBCUs, which educate almost a fifth of Black college graduates, need the FAFSA to work: More than 70 percent of the students attending HBCUs are eligible for Pell Grants, which are reserved for those from low-income families.

Nia Dyer’s dream of graduating college next year is on the line. She’s one of hundreds of students receiving state aid to pay for college through the Fostering Independence Grant program—the first of its kind in the nation to cover not only tuition but the full cost of atttending college for Minnesotans who have been in foster care.
But 40 percent of recipients in the FIG program are in danger of losing their funding next year because of a $5 million budget shortfall. For students like Dyer, who started receiving FIG last fall, that means her dream of graduating and starting a career in advocacy might be just that: a dream.

Community college leaders in North Carolina have a big request for state lawmakers when they return to Raleigh in April for this year’s session: a $100 million to revamp workforce training programs.
The governing board of the 58-campus system—the second largest in the country—wants to restructure the system’s funding model to make it more responsive to the workforce needs of North Carolina employers.

As many as 41 million people regularly rely on flexible work arrangements, including gig, contingent, and contract work, a number that has grown in recent years. These individuals are more likely to be Black, Latino, parents, and older than traditional W-2 workers. While there are some advantages to gig work—including the flexibility around when and how long to work—these workers have no right to overtime pay, unemployment insurance, or workers’ compensation.
The reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act gives Congress a chance to meet the needs of both gig workers and the businesses that contract them.

Despite fierce pushback from students and others, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed a sweeping bill into law that restricts the implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in certain workplaces and educational settings, including public institutions of higher education.
Leaders of several state universities weigh in with their reactions to the new law, known as SB129, in this interview.