Daily Lumina News 120722

Undergraduate college attendance has fallen almost 10 percent since 2020, but the decline is even worse among Black students. Some of this can be contributed to the negative perception that has plagued Historically Black Colleges and Universities for half a century.
But it's also because many high-school counselors neglect to tell students about HBCU options, experts say. New research from the United Negro College Fund aims to reshape this narrative.

Despite its crumbling walls and tiny cells, the 112-year-old Washington State Reformatory was a sought-after destination because of its well-regarded college program. It took Thomus Davis more than a decade and several transfers to get there.
Then, in the summer of 2021, it all evaporated. Plans were announced to shut down the prison. Suddenly, the college educations of Davis and almost 50 others were in peril.

Ongoing staffing shortages in the field of early childhood education have amounted to a five-alarm fire. In surveys, news stories, anecdotes, and just about any other source of information on the sector, early care and education providers say they are in crisis.
In this interview, Zahava Berman of the Ginsburg Solomon Schechter Early Childhood Center shares her thoughts on what’s at stake if nothing changes.

In 25 states, community colleges can grant bachelor’s degrees. But policies and funding structures vary in each state.
Higher education leaders from Arizona, Texas, and Florida offer insight about community college baccalaureate degree programs in their states and what's next for community college bachelor's degrees.

Soaring food costs have college students feeling the pinch. The need is especially great at Milwaukee Area Technical College and its Walker's Square campus, located on the near south side in the heart of Milwaukee’s Latino community.
Many students at the campus are enrolled in the GED or English as a Second Language programs while working minimum wage jobs that don't provide enough to cover rent, gas, groceries, and other expenses. Food pantries on all five MATC campuses and a formal partnership with Feeding America plan to help.

For more than a decade, colleges have committed (and recommitted) to diversity, equity, and inclusion among faculty. But how close is higher education as a sector to achieving the goal of racial parity?
It has a long, long way to go, according to a new study.