Daily Lumina News 050521

As the academic year comes to a close, higher education reporters from The Washington Post, NPR, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Open Campus offer their perspective on the past year and what the future may hold for college campuses. They also weigh in on the stories that they believe aren't being discussed nearly enough.

The economic challenges we face can be seen in nearly every community across the nation, and in seeking to tell the story of those challenges—and what we can do about them—Indianapolis seemed the perfect place for a digital magazine examining the struggle to preserve one city’s middle class amid a changing workplace.
The result is “The Middle: Indianapolis." Produced by WorkingNation, the magazine offers a compelling look at one community’s hopes and plans—and how those might apply elsewhere as the country begins to move on from a time of painful challenges to a future of opportunity.

Like hundreds of thousands of other New Yorkers, Adonis Goris lost his job last year as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the city. Goris, 25, years old, now considers himself lucky. The former administrative assistant not only found a new position, but he has moved into a new career in IT.
Tech positions are among the city’s fastest-growing jobs even as hiring slowed in most sectors during much of the pandemic.

First lady Jill Biden, a longtime community college professor, calls community colleges "our most powerful engine of prosperity." They’re also a significant force in the movement for economic, racial, and social equity.
In this op-ed, an associate editor at The Washington Post tells her story of how a community college gave her hope and put her on a path to a successful career.

Some 36 million Americans have earned some college credit, but not an actual degree. A new initiative called “Credential As You Go” aims to change this reality by making it easier for students and workers to earn recognition for their learning—in increments smaller than the colossal college degree.
The project's goals include creating a national credentialing system designed around what the journey through higher education and job training actually looks like for many people: intermittent, nonlinear, and unpredictable.

The Biden administration this week named Richard A. Cordray, a former attorney general of Ohio and the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to lead the Office of Federal Student Aid at the U.S. Department of Education. The announcement is a win for advocates of student-loan forgiveness.
Cordray is also an outspoken critic of for-profit colleges, and his appointment is the latest sign that the administration will push strong accountability measures for those institutions.