Daily Lumina News 111723

There are numerous things to fix when it comes to higher education today. It’s true that college is still too expensive. Graduation rates are too low. And schools need to recognize the needs of today’s students, who often must juggle jobs and family responsibilities along with their studies.
But even with its shortcomings, higher ed remains a vital engine that can power the economy, strengthen our democracy, and improve social and cultural well-being, writes Lumina Foundation's Jamie Merisotis in his column for Forbes.

High school exit exams are dissipating in states from coast to coast, to the praise of some and dismay of others. The pattern caps off a years-long trend that has only accelerated since the pandemic forced many schools to re-evaluate their relationships with high-stakes testing.
Meanwhile, fresh questions about how to fairly measure student achievement are swirling at a time when students and their parents report feeling increasingly underprepared for college.

About an hour into the call with her college’s bondholders, the president of Lake Erie College tried one last plea to get a break on the school's financial troubles.
Two months later, Jennifer N. Schuller has raised significant money from donors. Plans to boost enrollment are rolling along. But all is not rosy—the college still is waiting to hear whether those bondholders will waive payments for a while to let the college’s cash flow recover.

Over the past couple of years, tragedies involving student suicides at Yale University and North Carolina State University have created concern and criticism about the level of available mental health support on college campuses.
In response, more colleges and universities are being forced to rethink their approach to helping students in crisis.

Recently, university presidents have been battered by a vocal cohort of alumni and faculty members accusing them of not being strong enough in their denunciations of antisemitism in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel.
Now, presidents at some high-profile universities that have faced heavy criticism—including Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania—are trying to take more direct action to address those concerns about antisemitism.

For every two freshmen admitted to a college in the University of California system, administrators say they would like to admit one transfer student from a California community college.
A new program designed specifically for students at 69 community colleges that have historically sent few transfers to the University of California aims to make that happen. Many of the students likely to benefit will come from areas with larger proportions of college-goers from low-income families.