Daily Lumina News 031821

In the beginning, some thought the coronavirus pandemic would last just a few weeks. Instead, after more than a year, it has completely changed higher education in ways that will persist even after college campuses repopulate and California and the United States reach some form of herd immunity.
The most significant change concerns instruction and learning, with the vast majority of students and faculty in online classes. But other changes exist, as well, including a more intense focus on mental health and campuses becoming more flexible with how they operate.

Community colleges across the country are plagued with tight budgets—caused in part by state disinvestment and chronic federal underfunding. For rural community colleges, these challenges are even more acute, as their needs are greater and the costs of providing services higher. The COVID-19 pandemic has only deepened the prosperity gap between rural and non-rural communities, and it has left rural community colleges struggling to dig their students out of an ever-deepening ditch.
A new report calls attention to the experiences of rural community colleges in five states, with insight on how these institutions are addressing some of the access and completion challenges facing their students.

Thousands of would-be freshmen didn’t make it to college this year. Among Latina/o students, first-time enrollment plummeted by nearly 20 percent. Community colleges have been particularly hard hit, losing close to a fifth of all their first-time students and more than a quarter of their Latino and Latina freshmen.
The sudden drop, which followed years of progress in raising Latina/o enrollment and completion rates, reflects the unequal toll the pandemic has taken on the health and finances of people of color. But the consequences of the enrollment plunge could reverberate broadly, affecting not only individuals and colleges but the economy at large.

This year perhaps more than ever before, the college essay has served as a canvas for high school seniors to reflect on a turbulent and, for many, sorrowful year. It has been a psychiatrist’s couch, a road map to a more hopeful future, a chance to pour out intimate feelings about loneliness and injustice.
In response to a request from The New York Times, more than 900 high school seniors submitted the personal essays they wrote for their college applications. Their reflections highlight a year of personal tragedy, activism, and dreams of a better future.