Daily Lumina News 011921

Alexandra Romero is destined to get ahead in life. Romero is a first-generation college student who holds down a full-time job while juggling car payments and a mortgage. She says a strong work-ethic and steely determination keep her going.
Those qualities may be why she is rising toward prosperity in a state where very few people do. In New Mexico, low paying jobs, the limited availability of affordable housing, and a fragmented social safety net mean many young people have difficulty getting ahead. The COVID-19 pandemic has only made things more challenging.

In an effort to bolster journalism education to historically underrepresented groups, NBCUniversal will partner with 17 historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions and colleges with significant Latino, Asian, Black, Indigenous and tribal populations through its NBCU Academy.
The program promises to offer students from diverse racial and economic backgrounds a broad scope of on-campus training, online programs, scholarships, and opportunities for interaction with NBC News Group journalists.

In his new book, Lumina Foundation's Jamie Merisotis offers a roadmap for the large-scale, radical changes that must happen in order for people to find abundant and meaningful work in the 21st century.
Merisotis shares his vision in this podcast—along with actions to harness the population’s potential, encourage a deeper sense of community, and erase a centuries-long system of inequality.

Community colleges have traditionally been a refuge where recent high school graduates—and adults of all ages—could pick up credits and develop new skills during a poor job market. Enrollment at two-year schools swelled during the downturn a decade ago. Many expected a similar rush during the pandemic.
That didn’t happen. Fall enrollment at community colleges was down 10 percent from a year earlier. The decline in first-time enrollment at community colleges is a staggering 21 percent. Black, Hispanic, and Native American first-year students showed even steeper drops in a November report, between 28 and 29 percent.

The pandemic accelerated headwinds for higher education institutions in 2020. But with declining enrollment and ongoing worries over student debt, 2021 is also a concern.
Leaders of two very different institutions—Marquette University and UW-Milwaukee—talk about the difficult decisions facing them this year and why closing the equity gap is imperative for both schools and Milwaukee.

The U.S. Department of Education last week released details on exactly how much money thousands of colleges and universities are receiving out of $21.2 billion in COVID-19 emergency funding signed into law at the end of December.
This searchable database shows how much public, private nonprofit, and for-profit institutions are set to receive, as well as how much of that money must go to financial aid grants for students.