Employers are heeding the call of younger workers for help with their education debt, and taking advantage of a new tax break born out of the pandemic.

Still, there are more firms considering the perk than actually implementing it, a reluctance experts say is rooted in uncertainty about federal policies on debt cancellation and repayment.

The University of Hawaii is Lumina Foundation’s sixth Talent, Innovation, and Equity (TIE) partner, awarding a $575,000 grant to pursue strategies to generate a 5-percentage point increase in attainment for Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Filipino students in four years. 

Currently, these learners earn a credential of value at half the state's average rate. The TIE partnership signals that investing in native and indigenous communities through higher education is not only a moral imperative—but an urgent one, too.  

Photo: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times

Despite a 2017 California law that requires community colleges to direct students away from remedial education, more than half of the state's 116 campuses have yet to embrace the change. 

Advocates who want to largely do away with remedial education in California and in a handful of other states say many students can handle college-level work if given the opportunity, especially when they get help from tutors or supplemental classes.