Photo: Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe

With the gutting of affirmative action, stepping up allyship for Black and brown students as they strive to get into and through college is more urgent than ever.

It starts with dismantling the myths about affirmative action, writes Steven Colón of Bottom Line in this op-ed.

Illustration: Sam Green

In the past decade, as the print-textbook market has become less profitable, publishers like Pearson, Cengage, and McGraw Hill have increasingly shifted to digital offerings like courseware. Costs vary depending on the subject and publisher arrangement, but can exceed $200.

For proponents of courseware, it’s just another material cost, and one that’s worth the price tag for the additional practice and immediate feedback the tools provide. But for students already struggling to afford college, courseware can add to the burden.

Education can—and does—have a transformative effect, both in prison and after release. It helps people succeed and thrive during reentry, reduces poverty, strengthens public safety—all the while saving taxpayer dollars.

In this essay, the U.S. Department of Education's Amy Loyd and Amy L. Solomon of the U.S. Department of Justice discuss the game-changing potential of once again giving incarcerated students access to federal Pell Grants—and why the program's success is dependent on buy-in from prison administrators and the active support of colleges and universities.