Photo: Callaghan O'Hare

Javier Quiroz crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a young boy. Today, he is a registered nurse who paid his way through college and then fought to save lives in a pandemic that nearly took his father and infected him, his wife, and their baby girl.

Despite his parents’ earlier warnings that college might be out of reach, his mother urged him to keep trying. “Push the boundaries,” she would tell him, and it became a verbal tic. Now, Quiroz waits. He wants Congress to finally create a pathway to citizenship for him and his parents, whom he calls the “original dreamers.”

As the world watches the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, students on college campuses across the country are trying to make sense of its meaning. 

Higher education plays a vital role in helping people understand the Chauvin trial and its implications, along with other examples of the brutality of racism, write Suzanne Rivera and G. Gabrielle Starr in this essay.

Community colleges that aim to create a bachelor’s degree program face several challenges, including stricter accreditation standards that may require hiring new faculty or raising money to improve facilities. Yet chief among the obstacles can be resistance from other higher ed institutions that fear new bachelor’s degree pathways will draw away students.

But proponents say that embedding baccalaureate pathways within community colleges advances their mission to help all students succeed and local regions thrive—especially those people and places not well-served by other higher education options.