Daily Lumina News 090622

Admissions requirements for popular majors are a challenge many students don’t expect after they’ve successfully gotten into college.
Large public universities are far more likely than private ones to limit access to popular majors by GPA. Experts say that hurts students of color and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, robbing them of future income—and their dreams.

A "grow-your-own" program in Tennessee is working overtime to help stem teacher shortages. The effort enables participants to get licensed as teachers through an apprenticeship, instead of paying out of pocket for the degree.
Other students, like high schoolers and college students, work as student teachers in their local districts, while taking working toward their bachelor’s degree. The tuition and fees are paid for through the program, but student apprentices also receive tutoring and coaching.

The total student loan debt in the United States is $1.6 trillion and rising. For some of the more than 45 million people who have student loans, President Joe Biden’s plan for the federal government to forgive billions of dollars of that debt may be life-altering. For others, it could be just a drop in the bucket.
Eight borrowers of federal student loans, all of whom will be affected by Biden’s plan, describe how student debt relief will impact their lives.

A car dealership employee is hoping she can return to community college with a clean slate. A customer service representative is facing the bitter reality that she may never escape her decades-old debt.
Both are among the millions of people nationwide, many from low-income families, who borrowed money for college but did not receive a four-year degree. Will the Biden administration’s debt forgiveness plan get them to try again?

The high price of gas, food, and rent is straining students’ access to higher education. In response, institutions like Benedict College are using the infusion of one-time federal COVID relief dollars, grants, and philanthropy to ramp up offerings of free clothes, financial aid, and other necessities to keep lower-income students on track to earn degrees.
But with that cash running out, it’s leaving some college leaders worried about how they’ll sustain many of the programs they’ve built to act as a lifeline for their students.

A new report from the four largest Native American scholarship organizations offers fresh insight on how Indigenous students are struggling to make ends meet while pursuing college and supporting their families and communities.
To ensure Native American scholars can earn their degrees, the study says institutions must improve transparency about college costs, expand campus-based tuition and fee waivers, boost emergency aid, and purposefully gather data on their Indigenous students instead of grouping them into the catchall demographic of “other.”