Daily Lumina News 032124

Less than one-third of rural high school students enroll in higher education. The reasons include a lack of college readiness programs and a lack of college recruitment for these students, college access experts say.
Leaders at Miles Community College in eastern Montana want to change this trajectory by enrolling every local high schooler in a one-credit online course focused on career and personal development. The president of Miles Community College, Ron Slinger, explains more in this interview.

A training program at UC Davis Health is giving Sacramento residents the chance to start a career in the sciences, even if they don’t have a bachelor’s degree.
Over 16 weeks, participants will gain the knowledge and skills they need to land jobs as clinical research coordinators paying hourly wages of $27 to $48. An added perk: Trainees will get a stipend, allowing them to reduce their work hours and focus on their studies.

Morgan State University has reached historic enrollment highs over the past few years. Other Historically Black Colleges and Universities are seeing similar growth.
Many point to internal policies and practices—such as new retention and recruitment efforts and academic support for incoming students—for their recent success. Some HBCU leaders say new sources of philanthropic and government funding are fostering that growth. Others attribute it to a racial awakening.

Of all the challenges in higher education—and there are many—the biggest ones aren’t those cited by its critics.
Judging from urgent efforts in states to grow their supply of talent, the biggest challenge with education is this: We don’t have enough of it, writes Lumina Foundation's Jamie Merisotis in this column for Forbes.

They're known as the "Climate Mayors"—a coalition of more than 750 U.S. mayors—and their work involves bolstering local economies by creating clean energy jobs with equity and justice in mind.
Mayor Justin Bibb of Cleveland is part of the Climate Mayors coalition. In this interview, he discusses the green jobs movement—and why local actions are at the heart of global solutions.

Twelve higher education scholars are joining forces to respond to what they call politicized attacks and misinformation put forth in a March 7 congressional hearing about diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on college campuses.
Their responses are in the form of essays contained in a new report produced by racial equity expert Shaun Harper. Harper says the information provided highlights evidence-based data and research on DEI policies and programs.