Daily Lumina News 042424

Women’s participation in the workforce has recovered from the pandemic, reaching historic highs in December 2023. But that improvement masks a lingering crisis for women who lack a college degree: The gap in employment rates between mothers with a four-year degree and those without is growing.
For mothers without college degrees, a day without work is often a day without pay. They are less likely to have paid leave. And when they face an interruption in child care arrangements, an adult in the family is far more likely to take unpaid time off or to be forced to leave a job altogether.

Attempts to cancel speakers on college campuses are growing exponentially, spurred in part by the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the broader war in Gaza.
In this interview, Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression shares his insights on the state of free speech on college campuses and examines the rise of cancel culture, the debate over the limits of free expression, and the potential double standards in how universities approach these issues.

Thousands of public school districts and charter schools have turned to tutoring as a popular and effective way to jump-start lagging student performance post-pandemic.
Educators strongly endorse tutoring, when done right, and believe it can help students make real academic gains. Now, in an effort to spur the tutoring movement, the Biden administration is calling on colleges and universities to devote at least 15 percent of their federal work-study funds to pay eligible college students to tutor.

For many prospective Native American college students, the decision to attend college often means stepping outside of tight-knit tribal communities into a university culture that may not understand or recognize their customs and traditions. Aside from cost, many students say that the opportunity to celebrate their culture at a university is a top priority.
But that desire has been complicated by the recent surge in attacks on funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

For more than 15 years, Online Program Management companies have helped hundreds of colleges build online degree programs. And most of them rely on an unusual arrangement—where the companies put up the financial backing to help colleges launch programs in exchange for a large portion of tuition revenue.
Now the sector may be showing signs of strain. Are colleges ready for a world without OPMs?

When the Einstein College of Medicine becomes tuition-free next academic year, it will join a small but growing list of other medical schools that already have tuition-free programs.
While some experts in the medical field applaud the financial relief these tuition-free medical schools provide, they’re skeptical that free tuition alone has the power to increase the racial diversity of medical school student populations or the overall number of doctors of color.