Daily Lumina News 061821

As many as 6.6 million students nationwide can’t obtain their academic transcripts because they have unpaid bills to colleges or universities. These balances can be as little as $25, though they are usually higher. The average at community colleges is $631 and at universities and colleges overall, $2,335.
In addition to New York and Massachusetts, bans on transcript holds as a means of making students pay their debts have been proposed in Minnesota and Ohio. They’ve already passed in California, Washington, and Louisiana; there, too, college lobbyists worked to thwart or water down the legislation.

In 2017, the JED Foundation and the Steve Fund released 10 recommendations for campuses to better address the mental health of students of color. The recommendations included creating top-level staff positions to support their well-being, engaging students to provide feedback on programs, and sharing information between and within institutions.
Now, the two organizations have completed a pilot program carrying out those recommendations over two years at 18 colleges and universities across the country.

As baby boomers retire in record numbers, Latinas are poised to transform the U.S. labor force and catalyze economic growth. However, the pandemic has made clear that without considerable changes in job protection and safety-net programs, the economic potential of Latinas will be limited.
A new report from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative analyzes the current state of Latinas in the U.S. workforce, the impact of the pandemic on their employment opportunities, and the need for system-wide changes to unleash their talent.

This week, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott announced another round of no-strings-attached donations totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to at least 31 colleges with students from "chronically underserved" communities. Scott gave to 286 groups in all.
Many of the recipients will use the gifts to support racial equity and student success efforts. The University of Illinois Chicago plans to create a Student Success Fund to support low-income and first-generation students. Long Beach City College, a community college in California, will use its donation to address racial equity gaps and improve student services for its most vulnerable populations.