Daily Lumina News 072922

Community colleges have long been home to both young adult students hoping to transfer to four-year universities and older students returning after dropping out of college or who went straight into the workforce after high school.
Increasingly, community colleges are also the place students turn to when they find themselves at a dead end in their career and need to retool. Advocates and researchers are now asking if these institutions might transform to reach a fuller potential—serving as community hubs for social and economic mobility.

In more and more states, workers with green skills are spreading across a wide range of industries—including utilities, manufacturing, and professional services. But what exactly is a green job?
WorkingNation's Ramona Schindelheim weighs in on today's growing green jobs landscape and the skills needed for those jobs.

Tiffany Ferreira celebrated her graduation from New York’s Fordham University by sharing her success with the people who made it all possible: her parents.
After the ceremony, Ferreira placed her cap on her mother and wrapped her father with her gown. She hopes her story, which has since gone viral, inspires other students of immigrants to imagine what might be possible.

The U.S. Supreme Court ended federally protected abortion rights enshrined in Roe v. Wade with its 6-to-3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last month. But for colleges, the end of such rights marks the beginning of an era of legal uncertainty.
At last week’s National Association of College and University Business Officers conference, lawyers and policy experts explored some of those questions. Answers, however, were scarce.

There are many in higher education who believe that gender inequality in education is a problem only when it is women and girls who are left behind.
But given the vital importance of education in the labor market, such inequality matters even when it is men and boys who are trailing. All gender inequalities lead to wasted human potential, writes Richard Reeves of Brookings Institution in this essay.

Most business officers are upbeat about their colleges’ financial future. Are they right to be so optimistic?
This episode of The Key examines whether financial and other leaders in higher education think their institutions need to make meaningful changes in how they operate to be financially sustainable and stable down the road—and whether their fairly rosy view might make them less inclined to see the need for significant changes on their campuses.