Daily Lumina News 100923

Helen Faith is a financial aid director at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. This is the time of year when she focuses on a familiar agenda: hosting informational sessions on financial aid applications for families, reviewing prospective students’ forms, and generally revving up her office’s well-oiled machinery to start crunching numbers and spitting out student aid packages.
But with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) launch delayed by at least two months, Faith’s fall calendar is up in the air. And she’s not the only one.

The lack of mental health services at schools and colleges is a national issue. Students are enduring a mental health crisis so severe that the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory in 2021, noting that “the challenges today’s generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate.”
That sentiment hits home for Meaghan Birnie.

With recent decisions on race-conscious admissions and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, plus on-going attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at colleges and universities, many underrepresented students are left wondering: Now what? Will I have the opportunity to go to college?
Growing up Latina, low-income, and undocumented, Maribel Hernández Rivera had the same questions. In this essay, she shares her story about believing in one's dreams—and the power of education to make them happen.

Jon Shelton, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, worries every day about the future of public higher education in his state.
The signs are grim: cuts to UW System’s funding, staff furloughs and layoffs, pay raises held hostage, and campuses hemorrhaging millions of dollars. It all stems from a long-standing political battle that threatens to dramatically change the state’s higher education system if it continues on the current track.

For more than a decade, the Institute of Women's Policy Research has been working to shape public policy and improve the lives and opportunities of women from diverse backgrounds.
In this interview, two IWPR leaders—Nina Besser Doorley and Afet Dundar—discuss their efforts to close gaps and advance equity for an often-overlooked group in higher education: student parents.

Job satisfaction for teachers is at a 50-year low. They are leaving the profession while fewer and fewer college students are interested in joining the field.
Some experts argue that Americans have to change the way they pay, train, and appreciate teachers—or millions of students will suffer the consequences.