Daily Lumina News 103123

Four years ago, the Operation Varsity Blues admissions scandal exposed just how far rich and famous parents would go to get their kids into prestigious universities. But in reality, there are many ways colleges already give preferences to wealthy students—and they are completely legal.
This episode of College Uncovered explores some of those advantages, including how early decision benefits wealthy students who can afford to commit to a college before seeing a financial aid offer.

Preliminary enrollment data for fall 2023 largely brought good news to colleges and universities. Undergraduate enrollment rose 2.1 percent, with all major institutional sectors enjoying increases.
Additional highlights from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center's latest report: Short-term credentials gained steam, Latino and Hispanic students saw the most significant enrollment growth at the undergraduate level, and Vermont had the largest enrollment decline, with Kentucky witnessing the biggest uptick.

When students enter Danielle Insel’s college and career advising office with their sights set on higher education, she has a checklist of next steps ready for them to follow. For years, around nine out of 10 kids fell into that camp, she estimates.
But the pandemic has profoundly reshaped the college and career landscape for high school graduates in New York City and across the country. Counselors who advise them are now shifting their approach in response, providing more post-graduation plans that include career pathways such as apprenticeships and vocational training.

Throughout the United States, public education is facing a shortage of qualified teachers. In recent years, about 10 percent of all teaching positions were either unfilled or filled by teachers who were not fully certified, according to data from the Learning Policy Institute.
Experts say one of the shiniest new pathways to addressing this challenge may be the Registered Teacher Apprenticeship, which combines paid on-the-job training under the guidance of a mentor teacher with highly subsidized (or free) tuition.

Today's college students need learning pathways that put them on track for the career they want at the salaries they need to earn.
In this interview, Joe Thiel of the Montana University System and Lisa Larson of the Education Design Lab discuss why it is important for colleges to create a college-to-career pipeline strategy and what it takes to get institutional buy-in.

More than 830,000 people missed their first student loan payment in three years after one servicer, Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, failed to send timely statements to 2.5 million borrowers.
The error is among the many servicing mishaps adding to a tumultuous restart of federal student loan payments this month. After a pandemic pause, the resumption of payments has been rife with erroneous bills and long wait times for borrowers to reach customer service. The U.S. Department of Education is now scrambling to remedy the harm to borrowers.