Daily Lumina News 092923

The looming government shutdown could wreak havoc on the U.S. Department of Education's jam-packed fall plans.
Student loan payments resume Sunday—the day after funding for the government will run out unless Congress acts this week—and the agency is set to start negotiations over a new plan for student loan forgiveness in a few weeks. Plus, a new version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid is set to launch in December.

Colleges are looking for new and legal ways to help build first-year classes that will be diverse and whose members will be successful in the long run. That goal has taken on new importance after the U.S. Supreme Court banned race-conscious admissions policies.
To paint a fuller picture of a prospective student, some equity advocates say colleges could lean on things like a high school profile, the neighborhood a student grew up in, and family resources. Those factors can be a key predictor of students who have the potential to succeed and thrive in college, says new research.

Among the people streaming onto Baker College campuses early this fall were some new faces: federal investigators conducting an unusual review of the marketing and recruitment practices of the Michigan private college.
Baker College once was Michigan’s largest private nonprofit college, built on questionable promises of employment and cost. But now it faces a fresh host of financial and reputational challenges.

Millions of federal student loan borrowers are new enough to the system that they have never had to make a payment on their loans. That changes in a matter of days—when loan payments come due after a years-long pandemic pause—and these brand new borrowers take the first steps of a long journey toward paying off their debt.
Those initial steps can feel intimidating. Here's what new borrowers should know in the lead up to the October start date and their first student loan payment.

For formerly incarcerated people like Christopher Barajas, higher education can improve the chances of staying out of prison. Among those who are educated, the chance of going back to prison is 43 percent lower than those who do not participate in education, according to a study by the RAND corporation.
But depending on where individuals are sent for parole after prison, it may make continuing education harder. A new law in California is set to change that.

College-bound high school seniors are entering uncharted territory this fall: the first college application season in which schools are prohibited from considering race and ethnicity in making admissions decisions.
Admissions officials at selective schools have been anticipating this changing landscape for some time now, but what about students and their families? Sandy Baum of the Urban Institute weighs in on what they can expect.