Daily Lumina News 041221

Vaccinations are beginning to lift some of the dark clouds that have been hanging over many households for the past year, but the conditions that put education out of reach for many community-college students persist. Many are still out of work, underemployed, or struggling to pay bills.
There’s only so much community-college administrators can do against these forces, but many are doing whatever they can to help and reconnect with students. That includes meeting their material needs by providing laptops and hotspots, as well as food and other necessities.

A year into the pandemic, there are signs that the American economy is stirring back to life, with a falling unemployment rate and a growing number of people back at work. Even mothers—who left their jobs in droves in the last year in large part because of increased caregiving duties—are slowly re-entering the workforce.
But young Americans—particularly women ages 16 to 24—are living an altogether different reality. They face higher rates of unemployment than older adults, with many thousands, possibly even millions, postponing their future goals. For these women, the caregiving crisis may be a major reason they have put on hold their education or careers.

In theory, it sounds like a problem with a clear solution: Colleges and universities use money provided by the CARES Act to quickly fund emergency grant requests before students go hungry, fall behind on rent, or miss a utility payment. But in reality, the situation has exposed an administrative bottleneck at campuses across the country.
A start-up company called Edquity wants to remove those bottlenecks. Using a proprietary algorithm, it can decide for colleges which students get aid—fast. The company's app essentially takes over the entire emergency aid application, decision-making, and disbursement process.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom says all schools and colleges should be able to reopen after June 15. But Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the 116 community college system, is calling for a more gradual approach that includes both hands-on courses and distance learning.
Oakley explains his reasoning in this interview, plus why he’s optimistic that student enrollment declines could be reversed next year.

The past year has been the year of the unknowns, says WorkingNation's Joan Lynch.
On this episode of Jazzed About Work, Lynch talks about the impact of the pandemic on the future of work, emerging partnerships and upskilling programs to promote employment, and how people can get the training and education needed for a new wave of opportunities.

President Joe Biden's discretionary spending plan unveiled last week would send nearly $103 billion to the U.S. Department of Education, with a big boost to the maximum federal Pell Grant award and new funding for minority-serving institutions.
The proposal increases the department's allocation by more than 40 percent over the fiscal 2021 budget. It includes a $400 increase to the maximum Pell award—a "significant first step" in a push to double the full amount. Students brought by their parents to the United States without permission as children would also be eligible for the grants.