Daily Lumina News 101723

College decisions used to depend mostly on an institution’s academic reputation and its social life. But with campuses in the crosshairs of the culture wars, many students are now taking stock of attacks on diversity, course content, and speech and speakers from both ends of the political spectrum.
A new College Welcome Guide goes beyond test scores and rankings to find out what the culture on campus is like. The interactive tool sorts through data on hate crimes, freedom of speech, state laws, veterans’ tuition, rural campuses, and more.

Direct admission initiatives are having a moment, with state university systems from Georgia to Wisconsin adopting the experimental policy.
Advocates of direct admissions say bypassing the application removes a key barrier for many students who might otherwise not consider college. It can also be a simple and affordable piece of a multifaceted approach to combating enrollment declines.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling this summer against race-conscious admissions left the higher education world with many questions about how the decision could affect cornerstone practices. For one, what would admissions look like at highly selective institutions?
Answers are starting to emerge. At Cornell University, an internal task force last month issued a 40-page report with recommendations on how the Ivy League institution can alter its admissions work to help diversify the school's undergraduate population.

More high schoolers than ever graduated in Georgia last year. According to the State Department of Education, 84.4 percent of the class of 2023 ended their year in caps and gowns last spring.
But graduation rates alone are a dangerous narrative for success, says Tiffany Fink, director for School Equality at the local nonprofit Equity in Education.

In an economy with historically low unemployment and millions of open jobs, it remains a tale of two job markets for many with criminal records who continue to struggle to find employment.
While employers say they are more willing to hire workers with criminal records in a tight labor market, job seekers contend they face a tangle of barriers to getting work.

Jason Minicozzi, a senior at Duquesne University senior, recalls seeing his peers struggling. Without cars, many could not leave campus to find affordable food. The options on campus were expensive, with the added burden of textbooks, tuition, rent, and recent economic woes pushing students' budgets to their limits.
The lack of options led Minicozzi's organization, the Migration Club, to create the McAnulty College Community Food Pantry last year. The effort joins a growing list of local universities opening and expanding pantries to meet the food insecurity crisis on campus.