Daily Lumina News 042924

Most students at closed colleges give up on their education altogether. Fewer than half transfer to other institutions. Many of those will not stay long enough to earn degrees. Others lose credits when they move from one school to another and have to spend longer in college, often taking out more loans to pay for it.
The rest join the growing number of Americans—now more than 40 million—who spend time and money to go to college but never finish. And that’s happening at a time when efforts to increase the proportion of the population with degrees are already facing headwinds.

High school seniors are more likely to attend college if they complete the federal financial aid form known as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
But the state that was the first to require students to fill out the FAFSA to graduate, Louisiana, is reversing course and dropping the mandate after state officials deemed it too intrusive. For now, Louisiana appears to be an outlier.

Sam Prater knows what it feels like to be homeless. After dropping out of high school, he was evicted twice in his hometown of Detroit. So when he saw homeless students being offered just 14 days in college dorms in California, he knew he had to try something different.
Prater’s organization now has four homes in Los Angeles that offer wraparound services to help young people who experience homelessness jump-start their lives and their college education.

As a new wave of activism over the Israel-Hamas war disrupts college campuses across the country, many students are setting up rows of tents and bringing in food with plans to occupy campus property until their institutions completely divest from Israel.
Here's what that would mean.

Financial aid can make or break college enrollment for millions of students. And in the shadow of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection last year of race-conscious admissions policies, experts say affordability is even more essential to help diversify campuses.
This year, with the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid plagued by delays and technical glitches, there is a palpable urgency among higher education advocates to get more students through the FAFSA filing process.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Columbia University's class of 2024 missed high school graduations and university orientation. Their first year as college students passed in a blur of masks, Zoom classes, and isolation.
Four years later, not much has changed. The Gaza protests have resulted in the dispersal of crowds, remote classes, and students wearing masks to conceal their identities during demonstrations. Now another milestone may be lost: the cancellation of graduation ceremonies.