Daily Lumina News 030923

When Shai Reshef started a free online university called University of the People nearly 15 years ago, skepticism was high. Online education was viewed as a poor substitute for in-person study, and anyway, how could something free be financially sustainable?
The college has since won accreditation and grown to 126,000 students. Should more colleges adopt the methods of this free university?

Despite continuing legal obstacles, UC Berkeley intends to continue its battle to erect a dorm for more than 1,000 students on People's Park, a university-owned property that is well-known for being a haven for the homeless and social justice movements.
The legal saga over the dorm illustrates a predicament many of California's colleges and universities face: a dire need to house a growing number of students amid community opposition to new housing.

Affordable education is necessary to meet current and future workforce needs. And offering no-cost degrees through employers is one way to help workers reskill and upskill, while giving employers the opportunity to develop their talent pipeline.
In this interview, Jill Buban of EdAssist Solutions discusses why more employers are looking at non-credit and credit programming to fill high-demand job openings.

In California's latest budget proposal, Governor Gavin Newsom is calling on the University of California, Los Angeles, to create a guaranteed transfer pathway for community college students or forfeit a big chunk of state funding.
Newsom's idea is garnering both detractors and defenders.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the fate of affirmative action in college admissions this June. In the meantime, colleges across the country are considering how to maintain equity and diversity in admissions without it.
Anthony Chen, an associate professor of sociology at Northwestern University, is working on a book about the history of affirmative action in higher education. In this Q&A, he discusses how the country arrived at this moment in time.

Single women are an increasingly growing economic force, accounting for a larger share of growth in the job market, homeownership, and college degrees.
But while decades of changing norms around marriage and work have empowered women to carve their own paths, a stubborn wage gap continues to keep many women, especially single mothers, from enjoying the same economic gains as single men and married couples.