Daily Lumina News 122420

Three months into 2020, the world shut down. Streets emptied, schools closed, and businesses shuttered. The pandemic also exacerbated existing inequities , as those already struggling battled additional challenges: isolation, a lack of resources, profound levels of stress, and deep personal loss.
The 28 portraits featured here offer a window into some of those lives; their stories are both unique and representative of 2020's legacy.

"Maria" is a senior at Chicago’s Ogden International High School. On weekdays after remote school ends, she gets picked up from her apartment to go to a food processing plant to work an evening shift until the early hours of morning. It's tiring work—and makes remote learning that much harder, Maria says.
Maria is part of a new group entering the Chicago workforce: teens stepping in to help family members struggling during the pandemic.

Congress is throwing a lifeline to colleges and universities in the $900 billion stimulus package, but higher education experts say the relief aid is not enough to stave off a fiscal crisis in the sector.
With many students either fully remote or sparsely populating campuses, schools are forgoing money from room and board, parking, bookstores, and events. Enrollment is down across the country, sinking tuition revenue, and the ongoing public health and economic crises raise fears of continued declines.

Carrie Warick was working at home when she got some long-awaited news. Big changes in federal student-aid policy were coming—changes she and many other college-access advocates had long pushed for.
Earlier this week, as part of a massive stimulus bill, members of Congress announced an agreement to include revisions in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. In this interview, Warick talks about some of the key changes—and how they will help students and families.

Since late summer, EdSource has been delivering news about the pandemic and its disruption on college life with a series of special investigative projects.
This podcast features the reporters and editors behind the stories. Larry Gordon, Betty Márquez Rosales, and Rose Ciotta offer on-the-ground perspective into how California students and families are coping with the COVID-19 health crisis month after month.

College costs have ballooned in recent decades, eating up a bigger share of typical household incomes. That leaves some students and families wary of paying for a degree without knowing how much they'll earn later. And some lucrative pathways, such as in the trades, don't require one.
The health crisis also has some questioning whether a degree is worth the money, new research shows. Efforts are underway to fix that.