Daily Lumina News 061021

When a foreign-trained physician is forced to drive a cab to make ends meet, it’s called “brain waste.” A new report by the Migration Policy Institute found high numbers of underemployed college-educated immigrants in the United States—with devastating costs to those workers and the nation.
Helping immigrants succeed is not just a nice gesture, it’s an urgent, national priority. As the United States faces an estimated shortfall of 8 million workers between now and 2027 amid declining birth rates and an aging workforce, immigrants are a primary source of future U.S. labor force growth.

In a fifth-grade classroom at Monroe Elementary School near Minneapolis, a teacher named Thetis White has just received a giant ceremonial check—for $50,000. The check is to pay off his student loans and to make his choice of a career in teaching less of a financial sacrifice.
The person handing out the check is Markus Flynn, who heads an organization that supports Black male educators. In this interview, Flynn explains why employing more Black male teachers is the educational equivalent of a small change that yields big wins for student success.

When a fire consumed her house in December, Felicia Garcia, 20, found herself paralyzed with fear. She wondered where she would live, and if she could return to school at Metropolitan State University of Denver in the spring.
A new program called Heightening Outcomes for Public Benefit Enrolled Students (HOPES) is designed to keep students like Garcia on track to a degree. The effort offers social services, academic advising, clothing, and on- and off-campus resources like food and housing.

President Joe Biden's plan to help more people enter the middle class includes $109 billion to cover full tuition for community college. The plan also entails an $85 billion investment in Pell Grants for students in need at both two-and four-year colleges. And there's another $62 billion for resources to help students complete their degree.
John King, former U.S. Secretary of Education under President Barack Obama, discusses why he believes free community college will create new pathways for many people to get ahead.

College subsidies for children and spouses. Free rooms for summer hotel employees, and a set of knives for aspiring culinary workers. And appetizers on the house for anyone willing to sit down for a restaurant job interview.
Determined to lure new employees and retain existing ones in a suddenly hot job market, employers are turning to new incentives that go beyond traditional monetary rewards. In some cases, the offerings include the potential to reshape career paths, like college scholarships and guaranteed admission to management training programs.

New figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center provide a final tally of the enrollment decline higher education saw during the spring term of 2021: Total college enrollment fell 3.5 percent from a year earlier, a shortfall of 603,000 students. That is seven times worse than the decline a year earlier.
But the top-line number doesn’t tell the whole story. Some students, institutions, and parts of the country have fared worse than others.