Daily Lumina News 072822

The semesters from hell. Like pouring energy into a void. The great disengagement. However you describe it, faculty members, staff, and administrators across higher education agree that this past academic year was among the most difficult in recent memory.
But the lessons learned may also inform colleges' plans for this fall. That includes embedding peer mentoring and tutoring into undergraduate life, emphasizing belonging and engagement in course design, and focusing on students' mental health.

A spate of new regulatory proposals released this week from the U.S. Department of Education would restrict how much federal financial aid for-profit colleges can receive, add new rules for proprietary institutions converting to nonprofits, and extend Pell Grants to incarcerated students.
Department officials cast the proposals as part of the Biden administration’s plan to reduce student debt and strengthen oversight of for-profit colleges.

By his own admission, Stanley Stovall has not always taken the best path in life. He's been in and out of the prison system his entire adult life, with crimes ranging from grand theft to burglary.
Stovall has since found a better path—and is reaping the benefits. This week, as part of an inaugural program administered by Miami Dade College, he and 17 other students walked across a graduation stage at Everglades Correctional Institution to claim their college degree.

The New England Board of Higher Education, a multistate compact dedicated to supporting higher ed in the region, is developing guaranteed transfer pathways in three additional states—Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont—as a part of its New England Transfer Guarantee.
The initiative will provide new transfer opportunities, especially pathways to liberal arts programs, for community college students wanting to transfer to public or private four-year institutions in those states.

Most colleges don’t like to think of themselves as businesses, but a growing number are facing falling enrollments and a struggle to make their financial numbers add up. Those realities have forced several institutions to merge in recent months.
But two private universities are trying an unusual partnership approach that stops short of a merger while still aiming to restore financial health.

As a Black girl attending high school in one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City, Moe Sanders felt the odds were stacked against her when it came to college.
Her dreams were realized thanks to targeted assistance—including help with college applications, peer-to-peer coaching, and more—from Urban Assembly and its summer bridge program. Inspired by that support, Sanders plans to pay it forward to other first-generation students in her work as a college counselor.