Daily Lumina News 012524

While Hispanic enrollment at four-year colleges and universities has been on the rise over the past decade, affordability, access, and social issues still make it difficult for many of these students to remain on a path to graduation.
On this episode of Voices of Student Success, Adelí Durón, inaugural director of the Latinx Resource Center at the University of California, Irvine, discusses her work to raise awareness about the economic and cultural realities of the Chicanx/Latinx communities and the efforts that can help support, retain, and graduate more Hispanic and Latino students.

Families have a lot of questions right now about how much help they'll get paying for college—questions that financial aid administrators still can't answer.
That's because this year's Free Application for Federal Student Aid is months behind schedule. And to make things even more complicated, it includes a mistake that could have cost students $1.8 billion in federal student aid.

The Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University recently released a new report about the immense value of college degrees. The information is good news for supporters and advocates of higher education.
However, it's the story behind the data that highlights the unfinished business of college attainment, writes Lumina Foundation's Jamie Merisotis in his latest column for Forbes.

Karen Vallejos is the executive director of the Dream Project, an organization dedicated to supporting students whose immigration status may pose challenges to their academic aspirations.
As a former undocumented student herself, Vallejos knows firsthand the barriers that can prevent immigrant students from realizing their dreams. She shares her thoughts in this interview.

Using technology to advance accessibility at work and at home is a key theme at this year’s CES 2024 conference in Las Vegas. It's also the mission of the Consumer Technology Association Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the organization that runs the conference.
In this interview, the foundation's Steve Ewell and Keely Cat-Wells, founder and CEO of Making Space, reflect on how technology is improving access to jobs and career advancement for older adults and people with disabilities.

With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, the Biden-Harris administration is continuing its student loan debt relief efforts—this time approving nearly $5 billion for eligible borrowers.
The relief comes as a result of the IDR Account Adjustment, a temporary federal initiative that gives borrowers retroactive progress toward 10- to 25-year repayment terms under income-driven repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs.