Daily Lumina News 112823

Even though the U.S. Supreme Court banned race-conscious admission programs earlier this year, the ruling still acknowledges that applicants can continue to write about how race affects their lives “through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”
With that green light, counselors and colleges are encouraging applicants more than ever to explore their racial and ethnic identities and their views on diversity. How these essays influence the decisions selective colleges make could become another flash point in the volatile debate over the pursuit of racial diversity in higher education.

Three years ago, a handful of colleges opened centers devoted to combating systemic racism. As their newly tapped directors were still getting their bearings, the centers’ founding principles quickly came under attack.
Now, amid scrutiny from legislators and the public, the scholars who lead these centers are trying to defend their work. In this interview, six of these individuals discuss what they’ve been working on.

Some experts believe that higher education leaders need to change their thinking about community college students and their decisions to delay attending four-year institutions. For many students, the choice to study at a community college comes as a result of the multiple identities and responsibilities they hold: They do not have the luxury of only being a student.
In this essay, two Vassar College leaders explain why the next step in diversity, equity, and inclusion work is to focus on community college transfer students.

Highly selective colleges have several tools at their disposal when it comes to filling their incoming classes. But many of these admissions practices are facing accusations that they perpetuate unequal access to higher education.
Advocates for low-income students have called for an end to early decision admissions policies, along with practices that favor the children of alumni and donors. Still, few institutions are ending their early decision programs, which enable them to lock down their incoming class and ensure they don’t lose students to other colleges.

The new-and-improved Free Application for Federal Financial Aid—called the Better FAFSA—will go live by the end of this year. That's good news for Colorado college advisors, families, and students, who have been waiting months for the application to become available.
FAFSA completion correlates to whether students head to college, and Colorado has had one of the lowest FAFSA completion rates in the country. Last year, about 47 percent of the state's high school seniors completed the form, compared to 58.9 percent nationally.

If 2023 was higher education's year of reckoning, 2024 may be poised to emerge as the year when centuries-old paradigms go by the wayside and groundbreaking innovations are tested and implemented.
With this in mind, Scott Pulsipher, president of Western Governors University, highlights five questions that are likely to be top of mind for college leaders in the coming year.