Daily Lumina News 090920

After summer months spent weighing conflicting views about whether to open their campuses to in-person learning, many colleges that decided they could do so have been overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases. Now comes the next important decision: Hunker down, or send students home? Colleges are hearing arguments in favor of both.

Universities around the country are scrambling to meet students' expectations of college life, while still providing safety in the middle of a pandemic. But if those competing needs sound impossible to manage, they may just be.
Author Jeff Seligo discusses how the pandemic will impact the future of higher education on this episode of Innovation Hub.

Some 16.9 million Americans have been displaced from their jobs because of the pandemic and many of those positions aren’t coming back.
America’s 1,100 community colleges represent an obvious infrastructure for reskilling and upskilling a workforce that must be reinvented at scale for a new economy. Yet, for community colleges to live up to their promise, they need to shift their focus.

Amid growing evidence that the pandemic and recession are worsening equity gaps, Excelencia in Education last month released an analysis on Latino representation in higher education, as well as on degree attainment and completion rates.
Excelencia's Deborah Santiago talks about the report's findings—plus what some institutions are doing right with Latino students and where opportunities exist for colleges to do better.