Daily Lumina News 0112122

California's community colleges are at a crossroads. Since pre-pandemic 2019, campuses here have collectively lost about 300,000 students.
The crush of pandemic-fueled changes is pushing a system to a point that may force colleges to reimagine themselves in ways that are more in sync with students’ immediate needs. These priorities include expanded career training, flexible online classes, resources to meet basic needs, and a clearer transfer path to universities.

Wendi Lizola, a pre-nursing student, found a lifeline in a California program known as College Corps. The statewide initiative eases the financial pathway to college for students in exchange for community service. The fact that undocumented students like Lizola can join is an added bonus.
Lizola’s positive experience with College Corps is being replicated widely. The program currently helps more than 3,200 students, lessening their financial pressures and creating a small army dedicated to community-centered work.

After his decisive victory in the Florida governor’s race, Ron DeSantis dubbed the Sunshine State as the place “where ‘woke’ goes to die.”
But a federal judge pushed back against that notion last week, blocking the State University System of Florida from enforcing through regulation a new law that puts strict limits on what college professors can teach or say about race in the classroom.

Over the past 50 years, Tribal Colleges and Universities have protected highly endangered languages and provided access to higher education for students who might not ever have had the opportunity to go to college.
Yet despite their many achievements, these institutions have yet to gain the level of recognition and funding they need to reach their full potential—and, in turn, to provide equitable education opportunities to Native people so that they may do the same.

Matthew Chin is a third-year environmental studies student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Because housing near campus is so expensive, he lives in a used trailer that he parks in a driveway—a driveway he rents for $750 a month.
Chin's precarious living situation is far from unique. This episode of Gimme Shelter explores how California's housing challenges are making it harder for college students to get an education.

Young voters made their voices heard during the recent midterms with a near-record turnout at the ballot box. Still, university students and voting rights advocates say voters on college campuses faced far too many difficulties trying to cast their ballots.
Collegiate get-out-the-vote organizers are now pushing state lawmakers to expand same-day voter registration, better train election staff, encourage college students to serve as poll workers, and work with universities to make it easier for students to vote.