Daily Lumina News 111720

Just as COVID-19 has intensified health inequities and economic losses, pending state budget crises threaten to worsen the already bleak financial position of colleges and universities—entities that contribute to healthy state economies.
Recognizing the urgency of the moment, Lumina Foundation, in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and HCM Strategists, worked with experts in higher education policy and finance to develop a framework to help state leaders meet this historic challenge. The framework offers principles, analyses, advice, and examples of best practices.

For some time now, community and business groups around the country have been pushing schools and colleges to improve high school graduation and college enrollment and completion rates—especially for low-income, Black, and Hispanic students. Many were making measurable progress—and, in turn, increasing the supply of skilled workers to compete in the global economy.
With the pandemic disrupting in-person education and straining budgets, there is growing fear that this momentum may be reversing.

With many classrooms and dormitories lightly used or even empty during this strange, pandemic-shadowed fall term, pressure is mounting for colleges and universities to bring more students to campus in the next semester despite the recent surge of the coronavirus.
Students are tiring of remote instruction, and parents are tired of paying for it. Many also point to schools that have managed to house and teach large numbers in person this fall and wonder why, with adequate safeguards, that can’t happen everywhere.

Some college students have seen their parents laid off, lose jobs, or close businesses—major events that are taking a toll on their family finances.
For these students, such realities mean they must jump in earlier than expected to help their family financially. Still, many are determined to follow their college dreams and make things work.

Higher education has increasingly become a marker of partisan identification. Among white voters especially, a college degree has come to be seen as predictive of voting patterns. And counties with flagship institutions in them have increasingly swung toward Democrats in presidential elections.
What did the presence of a college in a county say about how that county voted in 2020?

Experts have long predicted that the winter would be worse for COVID-19 infections, leading to more outbreaks across the country. And they also predicted that the wave would not bypass American colleges and universities.
In response to skyrocketing cases this week and last, higher ed institutions have been transitioning to online learning in great numbers. This past week alone, at least 20 college leaders announced they will be switching to online learning for the remainder of their semesters.