Daily Lumina News 041621

More than 10,000 people incarcerated in Illinois prisons have tested positive for COVID-19. And with incarcerated students cycling into quarantine and isolation, it's become impossible for education services to continue in person.
Prison education advocates and instructors describe the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on college-in-prison programs—and what they are doing to help students adapt.

Lisa Gevelber, the founder and vice president of "Grow with Google," says there are millions of American workers without a college degree who believe good jobs are out of reach for them. Google wants to break down that barrier by training workers for skills that employers need right now.
On this episode of Work in Progress, Gevelber explains how Google's online certificate program is putting more people on paths to high-paying careers.

The message, emailed to thousands of students and employees at the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus last week, was alarming. Their personal information—addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, academic progress reports, and financial documents—had been stolen, and their university was refusing to cooperate with extortion demands.
Criminal hackers have taken advantage of the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, causing a significant increase in the number and severity of cyberattacks at colleges and universities across the country.

Hailley Lamebull began her second attempt at college in the fall of 2019, hoping to pursue a degree in business. The stresses of the pandemic soon proved too much, however. Eventually, Lamebull dropped out of Aaniiih Nakoda College.
She's not alone. Native American community colleges serve some of the most rural and remote populations across the United States. When the pandemic forced these schools online for the first time, many students found themselves struggling to keep up.

It’s clear that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed education in America in lasting ways, and glimpses of that transformed system are already emerging.
Hundreds of colleges have, for the first time, admitted a freshman class without requiring SAT or ACT scores, potentially opening admissions to the most selective colleges to more low-income students. And thousands of educators across the country, from preschool to college, are finding new ways to spark their students’ creativity, harness technology, and provide the services they need to succeed.

Jeff Selingo, author of "Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions," discusses how the pandemic has changed the admissions process, the huge surge in applications (especially at Ivy League colleges), wait lists, and what students and families can expect moving forward.