This has been an especially challenging year for Rosalba Ortega’s family. 

It’s been a cold, soggy winter in Bakersfield, and Ortega said her two granddaughters, ages 4 and 7, don’t have warm coats for their walk to school. Rent and food prices have been climbing, and as a farmworker, she’s struggled to find work in the fields. Last month’s delays to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — known in California as CalFresh — hit her grandkids at a time when her family is already struggling to put food on the table.

“There’s not much food for them,” said Ortega, in Spanish. “We have to look for low prices to buy for them. Sometimes the shelters give us food and that helps us a lot.”

Ortega said her family never had to rely on shelters and churches for food in the past, but this year has been different.

She isn’t alone. Disruptions to SNAP amid the government shutdown last month came at a time when California families say they are increasingly struggling to meet basic needs, including putting food on the table. 

Three in 10 Californians — and half of lower-income residents — say they or someone in their household has reduced meals or cut back on food to save money,  conducted in October by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Experts say that hunger and economic distress can affect students’ academic performance and determine whether they decide to attend — or finish — college.

“What’s happening out of school can have a huge impact on their ability to learn while they’re in school,” said Natalie Wheatfall-Lum, director of TK-12 policy for EdTrust-West, a nonprofit that advocates for justice in education.

Research shows children struggle to pay attention at school when SNAP benefits run out mid-month, and families turn to ultra-processed foods, according to Martin Caraher, a food policy expert at City University London who has worked with the World Health Organization.

“You see it in behavior and performance at school,” Caraher said.

Federal cuts reduce food aid 

, passed by Congress in July, made cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, called Medi-Cal in California. California’s low-income students and their families will likely see federally funded food support and health care shrink or vanish under the law.

This is coming at the same time that the Trump administration says it wants to  to “break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states,” a move that conservatives have long advocated since the creation of the Cabinet-level department in 1979.

Wheatfall-Lum said that the federal government has been making cuts and laying off staff at programs aimed at those who are already hardest hit by hunger and economic distress, such as migrant students, ,  and .

In its upcoming budget cycle, California should address the needs of families — both in and outside of education, she said. 

“What the state can do is make sure not to back away from programming in place to support these same students,” Wheatfall-Lum said.

EdTrust-West is advocating for the state to continue its commitment to a school funding formula that offers extra support to schools to help low-income and vulnerable students. Continuing to fund the community schools model is especially important, she said, because it is more responsive to families’ needs.

Families with young children hit hard

The number of struggling California parents with young children is especially alarming, researchers say. Nearly 3 in 4 families in California with children under age 6 report struggling with one or more basic needs, such as utilities, housing, food, health care and child care, according to the  survey conducted in July.

The project, conducted by Stanford University, has been surveying parents and caregivers with young children since November 2022. During that time, more than half of families surveyed said they struggled with basic needs, but over the last year, struggles with health care, food and utilities reached 73% — one of the highest levels since the survey began.

“It’s pretty stark data,” said Philip Fisher, director of the Stanford Center on Early Childhood. “Our research shows consistently that economic hardship translates subsequently into parent stress and distress, which . So if you want to know how kids are doing, these are not great trends.”

Fisher noted that supports rolled out during the pandemic, such as the expanded Child Tax Credit, increased SNAP and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) benefits, and stimulus checks, resulted in fewer parents of young children experiencing material hardship and emotional distress. As those benefits expired, that trend reversed, he said.

Researchers at Stanford asked caregivers to explain the biggest current challenges for their family in their own words. They shared those anonymized answers with EdSource.

“We’re working hard, but it’s not enough anymore,” wrote one caregiver in San Joaquin County. “We need our leaders to understand that even full-time workers can’t afford rent, health care, and food in this state. Wages haven’t kept up.”

One caregiver in San Bernardino County said they are worried about how the cuts from Trump’s budget will affect their Medi-Cal and CalFresh benefits.

“They might get cut because the [Big Beautiful Bill] passed,” the caregiver wrote.

College students struggle with basic needs

College students are also struggling — and unlike K-12 students who receive breakfast and lunch at school, they don’t have guaranteed meals.

Typically, students come into Long Beach State’s Basic Needs center because of a specific crisis, such as losing their job, said the center’s director, Danielle Muñoz-Channel. But now, students tend to come in just because they’re getting squeezed all around by rent, utilities and food prices.

“They can’t pinpoint any one factor,” she said. “We ask what changed, and they say, ‘Nothing, I just can’t afford it anymore.’”

Muñoz-Channel said she’s monitoring whether federal cuts to CalFresh and Medi-Cal benefits, such as tightened work requirements, could affect students and the future workforce. She said students need to have their basic needs met so that they can focus on school — otherwise they risk not graduating on time or not finishing their degree at all.

“I’m worried about how it will affect our most needy students who use college to break generational cycles of poverty,” she said.

Maia Jackson should have been cranking out a research paper for her communications class. Instead, she found herself queuing up at a food pantry to secure groceries for her household amid the nation’s longest government shutdown. 

“I walked out with a shopping cart full of food,” the 25-year-old college senior said. “I could barely carry it all. I got cereal. I got some frozen meat, hamburger buns. I got a bag of black beans, and then I got a bag of rice.”

Finding a package of chicken strips, a dish she knew her picky 2-year-old daughter would actually eat, almost made her cry, Jackson said. She expects the combination of perishable, bagged and canned foods to last them a month. By then, she hopes her Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments — widely known as food stamps — will have resumed.

On November 1, SNAP benefits ground to a halt during the federal budget impasse that began a month earlier, with President Donald Trump’s administration refusing to fully fund these payments, a matter now tied up in court. Even as the Senate has reached a framework deal that leaves lawmakers and the White House a step closer to ending the shutdown, the disruption in benefits has revealed how fragile the social safety net is for vulnerable Americans. That includes single parents and young adults experiencing food insecurity, a problem that occurs when people lack regular access to the nourishment needed to sustain their health. 

An estimated , including parents like Jackson, who attends North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo. For such students, a delayed SNAP payment isn’t a mere hiccup, but a serious setback that can imperil their education, their health and stability for their children, experts contend.

“It’s such a distraction for me as a single mom in school,” Jackson said. “I don’t have any bandwidth to give to trying to find food at pantries.”

She tried to minimize the time she spent at the food pantry last week by making an appointment first, but she was still one of a couple of dozen people in line. The visit prevented her from completing her research paper by its due date, which will likely result in her grade being docked. Jackson, who has so far maintained a 4.0 grade point average, isn’t happy about that prospect, but with her family members an hour away and her child’s father mostly out of the picture, she had to prioritize food over her education.

No college student should have to choose between a basic need and school, said Deborah Martin, a senior policy associate for The Institute for College Access & Success, a nonprofit that advocates for college access and affordability. 

“A lot of students have to make these daily tough decisions where they’re wondering, ‘Where am I going to get my next meal from?’ instead of focusing on homework, on classwork,” Martin said. “We know that when students have these unmet basic needs such as food insecurity, they’re more likely to struggle academically, less likely to persist from semester to semester, and in some cases, may even drop out of college altogether.”

Roughly . For the most marginalized students, the risk of quitting school due to food insecurity may be even greater. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan federal agency that provides fact-based information to Congress, reported last year that about — meaning their parents don’t financially support them, they didn’t begin college immediately after high school or they are caring for dependents. Moreover, the from the Hope Center, a research center at Temple University focused on the food, housing and health of college students, found that around three-quarters of parenting, Black and . 

Most of these students, the GAO discovered, do not sign up for services like SNAP, and those who do may hesitate to discuss their food insecurity. As a mom and a slightly older student who works part-time, Jackson has felt largely alone on campus as SNAP benefits have paused. Her classmates don’t appear to share her anxiety over the shutdown, if they know about it at all. 

“A lot of the kids that I’m in class with, they’re not in the same circumstance,” Jackson said. “It’s weird to see a lot of people just carrying on as usual.”

Since most of her classmates — about an even percentage of NDSU students are women and men — are childfree and on the school meal plan, she doesn’t want to be a “downer” by bringing up her difficulties. For the same reason, she didn’t explain to her professor why her paper was late. “I didn’t want to tell him, ‘Oh, I couldn’t write it because I was standing in the food pantry line’ because it just sounds so sad,” she said. “What’s he supposed to say? I don’t want him to feel bad for me. I don’t want to be pitied.”

But faking normal could come at a high cost for college students who don’t reach out for help. Martin fears these young adults will resort to using high-interest payment plans or acquire credit card debt just to afford groceries.

“The longer that students and other SNAP participants don’t receive their funds, this is just more days that students are going to have to make these difficult decisions,” she said.

Some college administrators are taking action. When the shutdown began, Compton College President and CEO Keith Curry contacted Everytable, a food company that offers inexpensive made-from-scratch meals via carryout storefronts and a delivery service. The college, about 18 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, has partnered with Everytable for seven years to provide all students — — with one nutritious free meal on weekdays. 

The federal government crisis prompted Curry and Everytable CEO Sam Polk to scale up that program so SNAP-recipient and economically disadvantaged students didn’t suffer during the shutdown.

“We need to do something. Can we split the cost?” Curry recalled asking Polk. “I think if we double the meals, at least they get another meal for the day.”

On November 5, Compton College’s most underprivileged students began getting two free meals per day, or 10 per week. The need for such an intervention there is substantial: A 2025 basic needs survey of students found that 81 percent of them experience at least one form of insecurity related to a basic need. That includes signs of food insecurity such as skipping meals, reducing meal sizes or fearing they will run out of food. Most Compton College students are moderately food insecure, the survey revealed, indicating persistent hardship. Women make up .

“Right now, students have other stress, and what we’re doing to them is adding more stress,” Curry said of the shutdown. “They still want to do well in classes, but now they don’t have food.” 

Together, Compton College and Everytable have the resources to supply students with 10 weekly meals for a month, Curry said. The students are deeply grateful for the additional provisions, according to Dee Garrett, who oversees Everytable’s operation at the college.

“What better way to start your studies than with a stomach that’s full?” Garrett asked. “You don’t have to think about, ‘Oh, my God, my stomach. I can’t concentrate or focus.’”

Asked what impact he hopes the scaled-up program makes, Curry said he’s more interested in letting students know they’re not alone.  

“It’s not about the impact. It’s about our students knowing that we were there for them during this time,” he said. “In our community, when students need us most, we have to step up and be there for them, and they’re never going to forget that.”

Martin applauds the efforts of colleges and K-12 schools, which have connected students and their families to food banks, to curb food insecurity during the shutdown. But she also advocates for long-term policies to ensure students have enough food to eat. That includes the , proposed legislation to remove the barriers that prevent economically disadvantaged college students from utilizing benefits generally — not just during the current crisis. 

However, Martin continued, “the most important thing that we can do right now in this moment is for these SNAP benefits to be fully funded and for them to go out to students as soon as possible.”

Back in Fargo, Jackson has refocused her attention on her coursework now that she has a month’s worth of food. Still, she worries about the people who couldn’t make it to a pantry or that the government will cut other social services she needs. She currently earns $400 monthly working part time as an academic journal editor. The job, which she performs remotely, allows her to attend school and be her daughter’s primary caretaker when the toddler is not in day care. 

“If they cut child care, if they cut these programs I rely on, I would have to drop out of school,” Jackson said. “But I’m trying to give my daughter a better life than that.”

Jackson is majoring in university studies with a pre-law emphasis, a dramatic shift from her life before motherhood when she dropped out of school and struggled with addiction. Getting pregnant inspired her to undergo a transformation, which she largely credits to the Jeremiah Program. The national nonprofit provides single mothers with support for college, child care and housing, and it recently started a campaign to raise $190,000 to cover essential needs for families who have lost SNAP and other benefits because of the shutdown. The organization estimates that single-parent families represent nearly a third of families in the United States, with 80 percent of those headed by mothers.  

Jackson has been deeply disturbed to see the misperceptions that abound about mothers like herself. She’s encountered online commenters who have characterized SNAP recipients as “welfare queens.”

If she could confront such individuals in person, Jackson would emphasize how much value mothers add to society. “And on top of it… we are all in school and working, too,” she said. “The insinuation is that we’re just scammers, freeloaders, when, in reality, I’m working very hard every day to hopefully not need these supports.”

was originally reported by Nadra Nittle of . .

Colleges and universities are struggling to stay afloat.

For 21-year-old Rebeca Damico, ChatGPT’s public release in 2022 during her sophomore year of college at the University of Utah felt like navigating a minefield.

The public relations student, now readying to graduate in the spring, said her professors immediately added policies to their syllabuses banning use of the chatbot, calling the generative artificial intelligence tool a form of plagiarism.

“For me, as someone who follows the rules, I was very scared,” Damico said. “I was like, oh, I can’t, you know, even think about using it, because they’ll know.”

Salt Lake City-based Damico studied journalism before switching her major to public relations, and saw ChatGPT and tools like it as a real threat to the writing industry. She also felt very aware of the “temptation” she and her classmates now had — suddenly a term paper that might take you all night to write could be done in a few minutes with the help of AI.

“I know people that started using it and would use it to … write their entire essays. I know people that got caught. I know people that didn’t,” Damico said. “Especially in these last couple weeks of the semester, it’s so easy to be like, ‘Oh, put it into ChatGPT,’ but then we’re like, if we do it once, it’s kind of like, this slippery slope.”

But students say they’re getting mixed messages – the stern warning from professors against use of AI and the growing pressure from the job market to learn how to master it.

The technological developments of generative AI over the last few years have cracked open a new industry, and a wealth of job opportunities. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom  with a tech firm to bring AI curriculum, resources and opportunities to the state’s public colleges.

And even for those students not going into an IT role, it’s likely they will be asked to use AI in some way in their industries. Recent research from the World Economic Forum’s  found that 75% of people in the workforce are using AI at work, and that some hiring managers are equally prioritizing AI skills with real-world job experience.

Higher ed’s view of AI

Over the last few years, the University of Utah, like most academic institutions, has had to take a position on AI. As Damico experienced, the university added  to its student handbook that take a fairly hard stance against the tools.

It urges professors to add additional AI detection tools in addition to education platform Canvas’ Turnitin feature, which scans assignments for plagiarism. The guidelines also now define the use of AI tools without citation, documentation or authorization as forms of cheating.

Though Damico said some professors continue to hold a hard line against AI, some have started to embrace it. The case-by-case basis Damico describes from her professors is in line with how many academic institutions are handling the technology.

Some universities spell out college-wide rules, while others leave it up to professors themselves to set AI standards in their classrooms. Others, like , acknowledge that students are likely to interact with it.

Stanford bans AI from being used to “substantially complete an assignment or exam,” and says students must disclose its use, but says “absent a clear statement from a course instructor, use of or consultation with generative AI shall be treated analogously to assistance from another person.”

Virginia Byrne is an associate professor of higher education and student affairs at Morgan State University in Baltimore, and she studies technology in the lives of learners and educators, with a focus on how it impacts college students. She said the university allows professors to figure out what works best for them when it comes to AI. She herself often assigns projects that prompt students to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of popular AI tools.

She’s also a researcher with the , an multi-institution organization aiming to understand what trust in AI looks like, and how to create ethical, sustainable AI solutions. Along with Morgan State, researchers from University of Maryland, George Washington University and Cornell University conduct a variety of research, such as how ChatGPT can be used in health decision making, how to create watermark technology for AI or how other countries are shaping AI policy. 

“It’s cool to be in a space with people doing research that’s related, but so different,” Byrne said. “Because it expands your thinking, and it allows us to bring graduate students and undergraduate students into this community where everyone is focused on trustworthiness and AI, but from so many different lenses.”

Byrne hopes that her students can see the potential that AI has to make their lives and work more easy, but she worries that it creates an “artificial expectation” for how young people need to perform online.

“It might lead some folks, younger folks, who are just starting their careers, to feel like they need to use (social media tool) Canva to look totally perfect on LinkedIn, and use all these tools to … optimize their time and their calendars,” Byrne said. “And I just worry that it’s creating a false expectation of speed and efficiency that the tools currently can’t accomplish.”

Theresa Fesinstine is the founder of peoplepower.ai, which trains HR professionals on ways AI can be used efficiently within their organization. This semester, she instructed her first college course at the City University of New York on AI and business, and taught students of all years and backgrounds.

Fesinstine said she was surprised how many of her students knew little to nothing about AI, but heard that many other instructors warned they’d fail students who were found to have used it in assignments. She thinks this mixed messaging often comes from not understanding the technology, and its abilities to help with an outline, or to find research resources.

“It’s a little scary, and I think that’s where, right now, most of the trepidation is centered around,” she said. “It’s that most people, in my opinion, haven’t been trained or understand how to use AI most effectively, meaning they use it in the same way that you would use Google.”

Real-world applications

, a 25-year-old MBA student at Duke University, not only uses AI in her day-to-day life for schoolwork, but she’s also pursuing a career in generative AI development and acquisitions. She wasn’t initially interested in AI, she said, but she worked on a project with Google and realized how the technology was set to influence everyday life, and how malleable it still is.

“Once you kind of realize how much that the tech actually isn’t as fleshed out as you think it is, I was a little more interested in … trying to understand what the path is to get it where it needs to go,” Boppana said.

She said she uses some form of AI tool every day, from planning her own schedule, to having a chatbot help decide how students in a group project should divide and complete work, based on their availability. Because she works with it regularly, she understands the strengths and limitations of AI, saying it helps her get mundane tasks done, process data or outline an assignment.

But she said the personalized tone she aims to have in her writing just isn’t there yet with the publicly available AI tools, so she doesn’t completely rely on it for papers or correspondence.

Parris Haynes, a 22-year-old junior studying philosophy at Morgan State, said the structure and high demand of some students’ coursework almost “encourages or incentivizes” them to use AI to help get it all done.

He sees himself either going into law, or academia and said he’s a little nervous about how AI is changing those industries. Though he leans on AI to help organize thoughts or assignments for classes like chemistry, Haynes said he wouldn’t go near it when it comes to his work or career-related objectives for his philosophy classes.

“I don’t really see much of a space for AI to relieve me of the burden of any academic assignments or potential career tasks in regards to philosophy,” Haynes said. “Even if it could write a convincing human-seeming paper, a philosophical paper, it’s robbing me of the joy of doing it.”

Gen Z’s outlook on their future with AI

Like Haynes, Fesinstine knows that some of her students are interested, but a little scared about the power AI may have over their futures. Although there’s a lot of research about how older generations’ jobs are impacted by AI, those just about to break into the workforce may be the most affected, because they’ve grown up with these technologies.

“I would say the attitude is — I use this term a lot, ‘cautiously curious,’” Fesinstine said.  “You know, there’s definitely a vibe around ethics and protection that I don’t know that I would see in other generations, perhaps … But there’s also an acknowledgement that this is something that a lot of companies are going to need and are going to want to use.”

Now, two years since ChatGPT’s release, Damico has started to realize the ways generative AI is useful in the workplace. She began working with PR firm Kronus Communications earlier this year, and was encouraged to explore some time-saving or brainstorming functions of generative AI.

She’s become a fan of having ChatGPT explain new business concepts to her, or to get it to suggest Instagram captions. She also likes to use it for more refined answers than Google might provide, such as if she’s searching for publications to pitch a client to.

Though she’s still cautious, and won’t use generative AI to write actual assignments for her, Damico said she realizes she needs the knowledge and experience after graduation — “it gives you kind of this edge.”

Boppana, who sees her career growing in the AI space, feels incredibly optimistic about the role AI will play in her future. She knows she’s more knowledgeable and prepared to go into an AI-centered workforce than most, but she feels like the opportunities for growth in healthcare, telecommunications, computing and more are worth wading into uncertain waters.

“I think it’s like a beautiful opportunity for people to learn how machines just interact with the human world, and how we can, I don’t know, make, like, prosthetic limbs, like test artificial hearts … find hearing aids,” Boppana said. “There’s so much beauty in the way that AI helps human beings. I think you just have to find your space within it.”

This story was originally published on States Newsroom.

She was guided to enroll in early college classes. 

Early college or dual enrollment courses are growing in popularity. According to , the number of students taking early college classes nearly doubled between 2011 and 2021. And for students in my home state, enrolling in these courses that they will start college immediately after graduating from high school and then persist for a second year.  

However, this opportunity is not unfolding equally. A recent showed that in Massachusetts, 64% of students taking dual enrollment classes are white, while just 10% are Black and 14% are Hispanic. Eighty percent are from high- or middle-income neighborhoods, while just 20% are from high-poverty areas.

How can schools close those gaps and allow more students to benefit? By embracing the idea that with the right support, everyone can succeed in them.

There are many essential elements to setting up a successful early college program.

First, make all students sign up. When these programs are limited to just some students, it creates a deficit mindset that others aren’t college material. In the early college program started in 2022 at my high school, all students are required to try at least one college class, some as early as ninth grade. This sends the message that all students can reach their full potential in a college environment. 

Second, have committed higher education partners whose professors are open to teaching high school students. At my school, all early college classes are headed by professors. Some come to Veritas to teach their courses, while for other classes, students travel to local colleges.

Third, make sure the classes will earn students college credit. These courses must have the necessary rigor so students will earn credits that will travel with them no matter when or where they choose to use them. Right now, 41% of juniors at my school are on track to graduate in 2026 with both a high school diploma and an associate degree, which will give them an invaluable head start academically. And 80% of them have earned credits that will be accepted at any community college, state college or state university in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This will save them both time and money. 

Fourth, provide extra support. Besides the professor, there should be an additional teacher in the class who understands the material and can show the students how to manage their time and ask for help when they need it. This extra guidance should happen both during the class and in companion classes held on off days, when the professor isn’t present. Such help students learn essential study skills and raise their awareness of the support that will be available to them when they reach college. Since are often reluctant to take the initiative to engage with faculty members, working with these extra teachers can increase their comfort level, setting them up for success. 

Beyond awarding credits, early college classes change the way students view themselves. Most of our early college courses have a 100% pass rate, and the students say their confidence has increased because they know they can handle challenging material. They also report having increased awareness of the value of a college degree, opening up the possibilities to pursue new fields of study and careers.

Students have said early college classes have made them less scared about the prospect of going to college. They are comfortable calling their teacher “professor” and they know what a syllabus is. The classes have helped them build habits of success like time management and self-advocacy. Upperclassmen taking courses at the community college now know how to navigate a campus and are better able to picture themselves attending college full time. They have access to college-level labs and equipment that are more sophisticated than a typical high school can afford; have experienced the benefits of visiting a professor during office hours; and are versed in how to leverage administrative resources if they need extra accommodations.

They also learn from their mistakes. For example, a few students were surprised by how much a final paper impacted their grade in their Principles of Marketing course. They revised their work and won’t make that error again.

The students’ success validated the high expectations set for them and proved that the support offered paid off, giving each one a strong educational pathway, wherever it may lead.   The five most powerful words any student can utter are, “I am a college student.” That ninth grader is now in 11^th grade. Since starting her first Early College class 18 months ago, she has not started one fight, has near-perfect attendance and has passed all her high school and early college classes. Helping her and other students ​​reach her potential will set them up for a brighter future.

The found by the start of the 2022-23 academic year the number of students who left their respective college grew to nearly 37 million — a 2.9 percent growth compared to the previous year.

But the overall number of students ages 18 to 64 leaving was largely seen in four-year schools compared to two-year programs.

Josh Wyner, founder and executive director of the , said the advising model utilized at community colleges across the country has contributed to their retention by developing an individualized plan for students to schedule classes and monitor progress.

“What that means is [community colleges] have created a much clearer pathway to a degree and restructured their advising systems to ensure students get on those pathways early on,” Wyner told ����Ӱ��, noting schools such as the and in Texas as prime examples of successful models.

Laurel Williamson, deputy chancellor and president at San Jacinto College, said the advising model is particularly helpful for first generation college students.

“It used to be just giving the student a schedule or telling them to go online and pick some classes — that’s crazy,” Williamson told ����Ӱ��. “Students don’t know how to pick classes…[and] we weren’t consciously thinking about it from the student experience side.”

Today nearly 400 community colleges in 16 states have implemented guided pathways reforms, according to the that designed the advising system in 2015.

“Guided pathways have enabled community colleges to reduce the number of students leaving and therefore having less of a population of ‘some college no degree’ adults,” Wyner added.

Williamson said Texas has been “proactive” about using guided pathways, noting 48 of the 50 community colleges have adopted the advising system. 

“[Guided] pathways bring you to focus on what is really important in terms of student completion and student goals,” Williamson said. “It could be a one year certificate, it could be an associate degree. But to boil that down, it is entry into the workforce at a family sustaining wage or an on-ramp to transfer with no loss of credits and junior status at a university.”

Since adopting the model in 2016, Williamson said the key benefit for students is the “thought out” academic advising.

“If you come in and say ‘I want to be a communications major and I want to transfer to the University of Houston-Clear Lake campus we map out the whole trajectory from your entry here to your completion of a bachelor’s degree at Clear Lake so there’s no confusion,” Williamson said.

Mike Flores, chancellor at the , agreed with Williamson and emphasized how the advising system is flexible if a student decides to change their major.

“If the catalog changes, the core requirements change or anything in the general education requirements change at the receiving institution, then our folks are some of the first to know and they then revise the advising guide accordingly,” Flores told ����Ӱ��.

Guided pathways have helped drive down the schools’ degree completion rates from 4.4 to 3.6 years.

“We know time is the enemy of degree completion for our students because education is just one of multiple commitments that they have in their lives,” Flores said, noting that 65 percent of his students are part-time and taking two to three courses each term. 

“It’s saving them time and it’s saving them money, and in turn, we see more students graduating,” Flores said.

Growth in Students Leaving College

The report found the number of students leaving a public four-year school increased by 2.9 percent. But public two-year schools decreased by 4.1 percent — or 52,100 students.

The report also noted the population of students leaving college continues to be less white and more male than the overall undergraduate population — with Latino and Black students disproportionately represented.

Latino and Black students were 24.4 and 19.1 percent of the students leaving college compared to being 21.5 and 14 percent of all enrolled undergraduates in the 2022-23 academic year. 

Wyner believes this disparity is due to students’ enrollment patterns, noting that Black, Latino, Native American and low-income students often don’t choose majors that lead to well paying jobs.

“When we look at which programs those populations are engaged in, they tend to be in programs of study that are less likely to lead to a job with a family-sustaining wage or for a community college student to get a bachelor’s degree,” Wyner said, such as general studies which signals students are entering school without a clear post-graduate plan.

He added that community colleges using guided pathways have seen an increase in degree completion because of their emphasis on career advising.

“​​When students don’t have a promise that the degree and programs they’re enrolled in are likely to lead to strong outcomes, then the chances they’re going to drop out are likely to be much greater,” Wyner said. 

“If I don’t see a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” said Wyner, “why continue to travel across that rainbow?” 

Not long after new college students have finished choosing , they are asked to declare an academic major. For some students, this decision is easy, as their majors may have actually influenced their choice of college. Unfortunately, this decision is not always an easy one to make, and college students frequently change their minds.

Benjamin Gregory, a former community college student, managed to graduate with an associate degree and transfer to a four-year school despite the challenges of enrolling as an older student.

And for Loren Van Tilburg, earning a four-year degree came to a halt when he left college and started his own automobile business.

From financial concerns to questioning the need of a four-year degree, Jennifer, Benjamin and Loren represent many students who were left unprepared to make their college decisions as the path to earn a four-year degree continues to be riddled with barriers.

“If you have some understanding of what you want to make of yourself and you have a plan to apply your skills, leaving college can be the best thing for you,” said Loren, who like many of his peers has had a growing interest in immediate employment and apathy for a four-year education.

Here are the experiences that led to Jennifer, Benjamin and Loren’s college decisions:

Jennifer Toledo, 19

Northwest Vista College

Growing up in Mexico, Jennifer always wanted to live in the U.S. and finally got her chance when she moved to San Antonio, Texas by herself when she was 15 years old.

But there were challenges — including when her high school stopped offering ESL classes — forcing her to learn English and complete schoolwork on her own.

“It was hard,” Jennifer told ����Ӱ��. “I was using the translator on my computer [because] I didn’t know how to say anything.”

But Jennifer’s experience changed when she took an education class in high school and the teacher helped her learn English.

Intending to join the U.S. Navy post-high school, Jennifer’s teacher encouraged her to enroll in classes at Northwest Vista College instead.

Today, Jennifer has earned her associate degree in teaching and will transfer to The University of Texas at San Antonio in the fall.

Her goal is to earn a bachelor’s degree in bilingual education so she can teach the ESL classes she was unable to receive as a high school student.

“I really want to help students,” Jennifer said. “I want to be that teacher who speaks and teaches them English.”

But Jennifer said navigating her transfer experience was “stressful” because she was balancing her studies with working part-time at a local middle school.

“At some point, I wanted to quit [and] go back to Mexico to stay with my family because of the stress,” Jennifer said.

Jennifer attributes the counseling offered at her community college as one of the support systems that helped her stay afloat.

“I needed help, I needed someone to listen to me and tell me ‘you’re okay, everything’s going to be fine,’” Jennifer said.

Her hope for other students is that they don’t allow their inability to speak English to hinder their higher education goals.

“I want to demonstrate to my family, and to everyone, that it’s possible,” Jennifer said. “I want to be an inspiration for them so they know there’s no limit to what they can do.”

Benjamin Gregory, 27

The University of Texas at San Antonio

Benjamin graduated high school in 2014 and enrolled at Texas A&M University where he majored in aerospace engineering.

But he was more focused on getting a “PhD in partying” and left school after a semester to join the workforce.

He spent three years working as a Target employee followed by one year as a mall security guard — where a physical altercation with a thief altered his life.

“Being a security guard was such a terrible experience for me because I hate being mean to people,” Benjamin told ����Ӱ��. “I got reprimanded for laying my hands on someone who on the [security footage] obviously attacked me and I ended up quitting my job.”

His parents encouraged him to “give college another shot.”

“This path working an hourly job as a security guard and as a retail worker wasn’t for me. I really didn’t like doing it, but it was just something I had to do to live, pay for food and rent and all that,” Benjamin said. “I just wanted a clean slate.”

In 2019, Benjamin enrolled at Northwest Vista College and eventually transferred to The University of Texas at San Antonio where he majored in mechanical engineering.

“I went from working a job where I didn’t really have to do anything besides walk around a mall…to having homework again,” Benjamin said, adding how grateful he was to have a second chance to take courses in what he is truly passionate about.

But navigating college as an older student without a paycheck came with challenges — most notably how to pay tuition on top of his other bills, including car payments and credit card debt.

“I didn’t know if I was actually going to be able to stick with it the whole time,” Benjamin said. “But fortunately enrolling in community college first was significantly cheaper and a lot more relaxed because [professors] know there’s other things outside of school that students have to worry about.”

Enrolling in community college first offered him a better transition back into higher education, he added.

“The class sizes were so much smaller so you could get to know your professor very easily,” Benjamin said. “And they don’t really do research at a community college so they were a lot more excited to show up to class than a lot of professors you will meet in a university.”

Benjamin recently graduated with his bachelor’s degree and will continue his studies at The University of Texas at San Antonio — but instead of a “PhD in partying” he’ll be working towards a doctorate in chemical engineering.

“I know that classes can sometimes suck…but I’ve been in the workforce without a degree and I know that sucked a lot more,” Benjamin said. 

“I’m thankful to my community college for the professional development and helping me be a more open person,” he said. “It was one of the best experiences of my life.”

Loren Van Tilburg, 19

University of La Verne

Loren originally enrolled at the University of La Verne and majored in economics, but quickly grew disinterested in his studies.

After his first year, Loren made the decision to leave his four-year school and get a job.

He experimented with a few ways to earn income — from day trading to dropshipping — but found his real passion was taking care of cars.

In 2023, Loren started a car detailing business which involves traveling to his clients’ home to clean and repair their vehicles.

“I won’t sugarcoat it, the decision was very difficult,” Loren told ����Ӱ��. “But at the end of the day, I knew that I wanted to start a business and I wouldn’t need a degree for it.”

While balancing his budding business, he also began working with a brokerage firm to become a financial advisor, which involves studying for a securities license he aims to complete by the end of the year.

Loren’s desire for on-the-job training and trade certification compared to a four-year degree reflects the mindset of a growing number of young students.

“I’ve always wanted to do something like this because managing money makes money,” Loren said, adding that many of his coworkers had similar educational pathways.

“It’s a cool environment to be in,” Loren said. “So if anyone chooses the path that I chose, it’s really good to find a community of people that made similar life choices because they will understand where you’re coming from and your struggles.”

For Loren, leaving his four-year school was the best decision he could make for himself despite initial pushback from his parents. 

“There have been ups and downs, but I definitely don’t regret my decision,” Loren said.

“For me, if I have to resort to going back to school then I failed,” he added. “I’m not saying if you go to college you’re a failure, but I chose this path for myself so if I go back then I kind of just wasted all this time.”

This article is part of a series in partnership with reporter Joshua Bay’s highlighting the struggles of community college students.

The report by , an organization that connects first-generation college graduates with careers, tracks the experiences of young job seekers, revealing that not all networks are the same. 

It’s particularly crucial to have a network that includes senior professionals, said Sheila Sarem, Basta’s founder. These people unlock resources for first-generation job seekers, like getting a referral or bypassing the typical application. A candidate with a referral was four times more likely to be hired, according to the report.

“The importance of peer and near-peer networks — those networks do matter for a ton for different reasons … [but] the best and fastest and most effective way to [get a job quickly] is to have senior professionals in your network and in your corner,” Sarem said.

First-generation, low-income and underrepresented students have limited access to this type of high-impact social capital, according to the nonpartisan think tank .

“Young people from the top socioeconomic quartile report nearly double the rate of non-family adults accessible to them compared to young people from the bottom quartile,” says a July 2020 institute report. “This gap should be troubling to anyone trying to support students’ success not only in school, but also in accessing high-quality jobs down the line.”

Another major takeaway from the Basta report: Exposure to a broad array of careers counts heavily when trying to land a job, seemingly more important “than just about every other factor we can isolate, including GPA, college major, and having had prior internships.”

The report’s findings were gathered through a career navigation survey software that Basta created in 2020, . More than 10,000 people have used the tool to learn about their strengths, career goals and job search strategies. The majority of Seekr participants are first-generation college students.

Specifically for the report, the data was collected from 3,195 young adults between July 2020 and December 2021. Some 57% were low-income Pell Grant recipients, 62% were first-generation college students, 17% were Black, 21% were Latino, 12% were East Asian or Asian American, 12% were South Asian or Indian American and 6% white. The respondents leaned slightly female — 51% versus 46% who identified as male.

Basta found that most survey participants had a network consisting of personal connections — neighbors, family and friends — and this group asked for career help less often.

Participants with more professional connections asked for help the most, but the ones who sought help most often and converted that assist most successfully were those whose professional networks included senior professionals — professors, managers, mentors. 

Sarem said these findings, plus other Seekr results, help institutions become smarter about how they serve various populations, like first-generation students, and professionals and investors learn more about elevating these critical networks for young people.

Created in 2016, Basta has served more than 9,000 young people and had $3.9 million in annual revenue, according to its most recent 2021 .

“If we believe first-generation college students have everything it takes to succeed in the world of work and we really believe that employers do want to hire across lines of difference, then what’s the problem?” Sarem said. “We built our program model to create some connective tissue across those two audiences.”

A 2023 Center for First-Generation Student Success found that even after earning their bachelor’s degree, first-generation college graduates were less likely to land a job that required it than their peers. One year after getting their bachelor’s in the 2015-16 academic year, 44% of first-generation college graduates had a job that called for the degree versus 52% of graduates who were not the first in their family to finish college.

Basta also offers a free, four- to six-month fellowship program that includes career education and coaching in preparation for a student’s first job out of college. Roughly 81% of fellows secure full-time jobs with an average salary of $62,700, according to Basta. 

Hadler Raymond entered the Basta fellowship in 2020 while attending New York City’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He credits the fellowship for him landing a job at Bloomberg after his 2021 graduation.

Raymond said he would meet with a career success manager once a week to craft resumes and learn transferable skills for future jobs.

“Basta fosters a very strong community,” he said. “Everyone being first-generation is something that helps with that, because everyone could relate to that struggle of having to figure things out by yourself, because your parents can’t necessarily help you with it. The Basta community itself was the perfect network.”

The report, Sachem says, affirms how important social capital is while adding nuance and understanding to what it looks like in practice for first-generation students like Raymond.

“I think over the last four years, there’s just been questions about, like, ‘What does this mean? Do we keep investing in this?’ ” she said. “Well, this is a really important moment to show exactly how critically important the social capital concepts are, when we’re trying to drive economic mobility, which is what education is really designed for — to create more opportunity for more people.”

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and Heckscher Foundation for Children provide financial support to Basta and ����Ӱ��. 

Just one week out from Indiana’s deadline for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, the latest data shows only about one-third of Hoosier high school seniors have completed the form.

That’s despite a new state law that took effect last year requiring all graduating seniors to complete the FAFSA or affirmatively opt out of filing by April 15.

The shows that 33.8% of the 2024 class had submitted the form as of March 29, equal to 30,109 Indiana high school seniors. That’s nearly 6,000 fewer Hoosier student submissions than at the same time last year, and slightly below the completion rate of 35% for this year’s high school class nationwide.

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Still, officials with Indiana’s Commission for Higher Education (CHE) remain confident that they’ll meet their goal of having 60% of high school seniors submit their FAFSA by the priority deadline. Students can still file after April 15, but state financial aid will be distributed on a first come, first serve basis.

“We are hopeful,” said Allison Kuehr, CHE’s associate commissioner for marketing and communications, noting that other data shows improvement “which is a great sign for potentially meeting that 60% goal.”

Bumps in the road

The decrease in the number of 2024 FAFSA filings is a nationwide trend, with only about 35% of high school seniors submitting the FAFSA form across the country as of March 15, marking a 27% drop, according to the National College Attainment Network.

Nearly 48% of graduating 2023 high school seniors across Indiana, specifically, completed FAFSA last school year, according to .

Kuehr suggested two factors have led to the decline in financial aid applications.

In years prior, FAFSA became available Oct. 1. Changes to the application last year — meant to simplify the submission process — delayed its opening until late December and likely caused the lag of submissions.

CHE previously got FAFSA completion data a few weeks after the application launched in October and would get updates from the federal government “almost immediately” during the monthslong submission window, Kuehr said. This year, Indiana officials didn’t receive data until last month, and they’re still “ingesting” those numbers, she added.

Hiccups with the federal government’s rollout of the updated, streamlined FAFSA form have also further complicated matters and delayed when many students will receive their financial aid offer, Kuehr said.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education indicated that about 330,000 federal financial aid applications will need to be reprocessed following the latest FAFSA complications.

Of the over 6.6 million FAFSAs submitted in the current cycle, about that would make students eligible for less financial aid than they are entitled to, according to the education department. The agency is expected to begin reprocessing these applications in the first half of April.

“While we do not have enough information to do an exact calculation, from all the information that we have received, we anticipate that as many as 20% of the students that we have received information from so far will be impacted and will need to be reprocessed,” Kuehr said of the expected impact, which represents at least 6,000 Hoosier students.

Given the issues and delays, multiple Indiana colleges and universities pushed back their admissions deadlines, including Indiana University Bloomington and , which both extended their deadlines to May 15.

Millions in aid still up for grabs

Even so, Kuehr pointed to “success” already prompted by , signed into law last year.

The measure, which made FAFSA a requirement in Indiana, was promoted by Republican Sen. Jean Leising of Oldenburg as a way to get more students to apply for federal aid, given that Hoosier students left at least $65 million in potential federal aid unclaimed in 2022.

CHE and other state officials have long supported ongoing efforts to increase FAFSA submissions — part of an effort to .

The new law made Indiana the eighth state to have some type of FAFSA filing mandate for high schoolers. There are no penalties if a student fails to submit the application, however.

“(The law) requires high schools to make at least two reasonable attempts at providing students with information about the FAFSA before being able to broadly opt students out, so there has been a concerted statewide effort to increase awareness and participation in FAFSA completion,” Kuehr said. “A level of these efforts have always existed prior to the new law, but this year, there is a definite push.”

CHE is spearheading other efforts to increase the number of FAFSA submissions, too, including the to Hoosier students from Indiana’s higher education intuitions.

Kuehr emphasized that CHE also sends “almost daily email reminders to students to file as a countdown to the deadline.” The commission is additionally partnering with the Indiana Latino Institute and INvestEd to host Facebook Live events and answer common questions about the FAFSA in both English and Spanish.

Across the state, CHE outreach coordinators are in schools and communities to provide one-on-one assistance, Kuehr said.

And with filing rates for low-income and underrepresented students especially low — only 28.5% of students from those groups submitting their FAFSA form, lower than the overall state and nationwide rates — Kuehr said CHE is making intentional outreach to students who are part of the 21st Century Scholars program, which provides low-income students in Indiana with tuition and fees fully covered if they attend an in-state college or university.

“Outside of the commission, we know school counselors and higher education institutions are providing their own FAFSA nights for students and parents to receive help,” she said, also noting that INvestEd will continue to host FAFSA nights around Indiana. “It truly is an all-hands effort.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on and .

For a year and a half, 20 eager Virginia Tech students have diligently prepared their scientific balloons for Eclipse Day. Along with about 800 other undergraduates nationwide who will participate in the NASA-sponsored National Eclipse Ballooning Project, these STEM students will launch balloons with scientific instruments attached to gather more information about Earth’s atmosphere.

On April 8, a total solar eclipse will cross North America, tracing a path over far more populated areas of the United States than the last one in August 2017. The project, which Montana State University started in 2017 to involve STEM students in this historic day, includes 53 teams who will document an event that won’t happen again for another 20 years.

Angela Des Jardins, director of the project, says the experience provides students with hands-on opportunities that they don’t get in the classroom. Of the 75 colleges taking part, 30% are minority-serving and 15% are community colleges.

“Ballooning has been around for a long time, and some of the bigger institutions that have more resources, it’s easy for them to go do this kind of thing,” Des Jardins says. “What’s really important is to give students opportunities that wouldn’t have them otherwise.”

The project also offers students access to over 200 mentors and a speaker series where NASA scientists and other experts in the field offer career advice.

The program has two tracks: atmospheric science and engineering. Each group is focused on preparing its payloads. For the atmospheric science groups, these are instruments like radiosondes that are used to measure temperature, humidity and wind speed. Radiosondes are the same instruments used by the National Weather Service at least twice a day at the 93 stations across the country.

“The thing that’s different from what the National Weather Service does is, instead of just flying two a day, they [students] actually fly one every hour 24 hours before the eclipse, then six hours after,” Des Jardins said.

Des Jardins says flying the radiosondes multiple times gives students a snapshot before and during the eclipse to compare the changes caused by the cold, dark shadow of the moon. 

For engineering team members, the payloads involve different types of cameras, such as GoPros and 360-degree cameras. NASA will be livestreaming the images they capture on its website.

The project is not only beneficial for documenting history and allowing environmental scientists to understand the atmosphere better as they research climate change. The highly technical experiment also gives students experiences they need as they pursue internships, graduate school and full-time jobs.

Virginia Smith participated in the 2017 challenge during her senior year at the University of Kentucky as a mechanical engineering student. Like many of the current participants, Smith came on to the project having little experience with technical electronics. She started by building boxes for the cameras to be placed on the balloon’s flight string. Her team had two balloons, one of which she was in charge of. As mission lead, she says, timing was everything. It was crucial that the balloon reached 100,000 feet right in time with totality, which occurs when the moon is completely obscuring the sun.

“Students create timelines that allowed us to be at a particular altitude during totality and record footage, which was the entire goal of that project,” Smith said. “As mission controller, not only making sure that the other people who have payloads are ready to go, you’re making sure that you’re on that timeline. You have a very small window to hit for the launch. And if you miss that window, you’re going to miss your altitude target.”

Smith credits the project from seven years ago for her interest in satellites and balloons. The project also helped her during her two internships at NASA in 2016 and 2017, where she focused on designing small satellites and did finite element analysis, which involves using calculations to predict how an object might behave under various conditions.

Now, as a graduate research assistant and Ph.D. candidate in aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech, she has been mentoring this year’s participants for the last year and a half, offering her first-hand knowledge to the group as a former mission lead. The team will be stationed at Three Rivers College in Missouri on the big day and flying two balloons.

What she learned during those internships “actually did come into play for the [2017] eclipse, because we were designing payloads … and making sure they could withstand impact in terms of landing,” Smith said. The team had to consider multiple possibilities, such as the balloon landing in water, in a high tree or on top of a roof. “There are all these scenarios that you’re looking at. How do you make a successful design to survive the environment both in the atmosphere and then also as you land?”

Smith is excited to be able to view the total eclipse for a longer period this year. But she’s most looking forward to seeing the hard work the students have put in for several months, with test launches and payload development, pay off. Many team members are transfer students from community colleges and came in with different skill sets and no background in engineering or ballooning. This experience has helped multiple students get summer internships.

“We get to enjoy the eclipse and then we get to enjoy totality. It’ll be an exciting event for everyone, and most of the students have not seen an eclipse before. So this is also an opportunity for them to be able to experience natural phenomenon that will not be coast to coast in the U.S. for several years more,” Smith said.

Corrections: The name of the NASA-sponsored organization is the National Eclipse Ballooning Project. The project reached out after publication to correct the balloon’s target altitude. It’s 100,000 feet.

A Republican state senator wants to give students at Arizona’s public universities a new way to challenge grades that they believe were handed down due to a professor’s political bias.

Sen. Anthony Kern, of Glendale, who has previously as “not a university guy,” has taken aim this year at the Arizona Board of Regents and the three public universities that they govern for what he says is discrimination against conservative students and speakers.

The Board of Regents governs University of Arizona, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University.

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�������’s would create a “grade challenge department” within the Board of Regents at all three universities, which would “hear challenges from public university students regarding grades received in any class or on any assignment if a student alleges a grade was awarded because of political bias.”

The departments would be staffed by volunteers chosen by the Board of Regents.

If a challenge department concluded that political bias influenced a student’s grade, it could require the professor who awarded it to regrade the assignment or reevaluate the student’s grade for the class in alignment with the department’s findings.

If a student believed that the department wrongly dismissed their grade challenge, the student could appeal the decision to ABOR, though the legislation doesn’t require that the regents actually consider any appeals.

“A lot of students that I met with at ASU, they do not feel that they can debate issues according to their politics or according to what they believe, because they’re afraid their grades are going to be lowered, and this is trying to help those,” Kern said before voting in favor of the bill on Feb. 22.

The bill passed through the Senate that day by a vote of 16-12, with only Republicans voting in favor.

Kern acknowledged that ABOR already has its own process for students to challenge their grades, but said he criticized it as inadequate. He added that he doesn’t believe that the Board of Regents is necessary at all.

He said he believes the bill would make students “more comfortable speaking on issues that they should be able to speak on.”

During a House Education Committee meeting on Tuesday, Thomas Adkins, a lobbyist for the Board of Regents, told lawmakers that the board opposed the measure for several reasons.

Echoing Kern, Adkins pointed out that the universities already have and academic grievance processes that allow students to contest their grades. The legislation would circumvent and undermine that process, he said.

Currently, the process starts with an informal conversation between the student and instructor, and can escalate to the dean and progress to a review by an academic committee.

Secondly, the bill would create what Adkins said is an unfunded burden on the regents to create and oversee the new departments at each campus, requiring them to open satellite offices there. He said that ABOR only has 40 employees and that taking on oversight of these departments would put a strain on them.

Last summer, Kern co-chaired a legislative committee at Arizona’s public universities. The committee was formed shortly after ASU administrator Ann Atkinson from the university for bringing controversial far-right speakers to the campus for an event.

The university denied Atkinson’s claims, saying that she was let go because the organization that sponsored her position pulled its funding. In an investigation that was ordered by Arizona lawmakers, ASU determined that claims of censorship of conservative ideas and the chilling of free speech .

The event for which Atkinson claimed she was fired wasn’t canceled, and far-right speakers like Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, and Dennis Prager, a conservative radio talk show host and writer, both spoke at the event.

Referencing students who spoke to the committee, Tucson Republican Rep. Rachel Jones told Adkins that conservative students on campus were “feeling silenced.”

“Some of these students are feeling the need to lie about their political beliefs so that they get good grades,” she said.

Adkins said it wasn’t a stretch to say the Board of Regents shares some of her concerns, but that its members believe that disagreements over grades can be resolved by making some changes to the existing processes instead of completely replacing them.

The bill passed out of the House Education Committee by a vote of 4-3, along party lines. Next, it will head to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on and .

College students in New Jersey would lose state financial aid if they get convicted of hazing under a Democratic lawmaker introduced last week.

Assemblywoman Carol Murphy’s proposal would expand on anti-hazing protections lawmakers adopted in 2021 after the 2017 death of , a 19-year-old Readington resident and Penn State student whose fraternity hazing led to his fatal fall down a staircase.

That required all middle schools, high schools, and higher education institutions to adopt anti-hazing policies and penalties. It also upgraded criminal penalties for hazing, making it a third-degree crime if a victim suffered serious injury or died and a fourth-degree crime if the victim suffered any injury at all.

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The law was hailed nationally because it has an “amnesty clause” prohibiting the prosecution of someone who alerts authorities that a hazing victim needs medical assistance and a “consent clause,” meaning those involved can still be held responsible even if the victim willingly participated.

Murphy’s bill comes four months after federal lawmakers introduced bipartisan that would require colleges to report hazing incidents annually, educate students about the practice, and alert students and parents to campus student groups with a history of hazing.

Hazing deaths in the United States by any government entity, but an anti-hazing advocate who maintains an unofficial found at least one person a year died from hazing between 1959 and 2021. He found no deaths publicly attributed to hazing in 2022 or 2023.

In March 2022, a Rutgers University freshman fell down stairs and fractured his skull after drinking “life-threatening amounts of alcohol” as part of pledge-hazing activities at Theta Chi fraternity, according to he filed seven months later against Rutgers, the fraternity, and various other named defendants. That case remains in litigation.

University officials determined the fraternity violated Rutgers’ anti-hazing policies and state law and ordered the chapter removed, according to a Rutgers’ hazing

Such reporting was required under the 2021 law, which directed all public and private colleges, starting in January 2022, to publicly post data on their websites twice a year on hazing incidents, including data dating back five years, if available. It did not mandate central tracking.

The reporting can be tough to find on some college websites and the level of detail reported varies between institutions.

The reports show most hazing incidents statewide involved fraternities and sororities. Common incidents included underage students taken for hospital care because of forced excessive drinking, sleep deprivation, mandated house-cleaning, physical beating, bullying, and verbal abuse, while less common reports involved “paddling,” forced miles-long marches in freezing weather, and fraternity members directed to by doing “a robot dance” and “Dragon Ball Z Saiyan scream.”

This is the fourth time Murphy, who represents Burlington County, has introduced the bill. It passed unanimously in the Senate in 2019 but stalled in the Assembly, and it failed to advance in the two most recent legislative sessions.

Murphy didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Her legislation notes that high-profile hazing incidents, including the deaths of Piazza and students at and , demonstrate that additional deterrents are needed to reduce hazing.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

The University of California suspended for a year its plan to allow undocumented students to acquire campus jobs, crushing a student-led movement more than a year in the making.  

The decision all but halts an effort by UCLA law professors and student advocates to create a pathway for the estimated 4,000 undocumented UC students to earn a paycheck legally. While many students without legal immigrant protections receive state financial aid and have their tuition waived, those students are often on their own financially to cover rent, food and other necessary expenses to continue their studies. These students also are blocked from receiving federal grants, further intensifying their fiscal strain.

“We have concluded that the proposed legal pathway is not viable at this time,” said Michael Drake, president of the UC, at today’s regents meeting. He said the proposal is “inadvisable” and “carries significant risk for the institution and for those we serve.”

However, “as new information becomes available, we will evaluate that information, and if appropriate, move ahead,” he said.

Regents, who make up the top governing board of the UC, voted to formally rescind a policy it adopted in May to explore implementing the hiring plan. Undocumented students in the audience screamed through tears, some who were on a hunger strike since Tuesday to pressure the UC to adopt the hiring measure. 

“Cowards!” a student yelled. “Shame,” another said. “I hope you live with this for the rest of your life,” said another.

“I’m deeply disappointed that the UC Regents and President Drake shirked their duties to the students they are supposed to protect and support,” said Jeffry Umaña Muñoz, a UCLA undocumented student and leader at Undocumented Student-Led Network, in a statement. “We as UC students deserve so much more from our university leadership. This is not the end of our fight for equality.”

Ten regents voted in  to rescind the proposal for a year and six opposed. One voter abstained.

“I can’t think of a moment where I’ve been more disappointed sitting around this board table,” said John Pérez, a UC regent and member of a working group to explore the plan. He voted no.

The UC would have been the first university to adopt such a measure, said Jorge Silva, a senior spokesperson for the UC.

UC’s general counsel, Charles Robinson, and his legal team were “very skeptical of the legal theory,” said Merhawi Tesfai, a UC regent and graduate student who votes on the board. Tesfai was also part of the working group and wanted the UC to hire undocumented students.

Drake in his comments today said that his office consulted with legal experts “”

Tesfai said the general counsel’s office sought legal analysis from multiple outside law firms, and their conclusion was that “this wasn’t something that they would recommend and that it wouldn’t be legally viable,” Tesfai said, summarizing comments that Robinson and Drake made to him and other regents.

After today’s vote, he and a few other regents consoled the crying undocumented students in attendance at the UC San Francisco meeting space. “It was all justified anger,” he said.

Legal theory

Core to the novel legal argument of the UCLA coalition Opportunity For All is that while a 1986 federal law bars employers from hiring undocumented immigrants, the UC, as a state agency, . “Under governing U.S. Supreme Court precedents, if a federal law does not mention the states explicitly, that federal law does not bind state government entities,” the coalition’s 2022 legal memo said. Nothing in that federal law “expressly binds or even mentions state government entities.” 

Pérez said that “we have gotten so focused on the question of what the law clearly says today that we’re losing sight of the moral imperative of what the law should be interpreted as being.”

But Drake said the risks were too great. Human resources employees and legal staff “might be subject to criminal or civil prosecution if they knowingly participate in hiring practices deemed impermissible under federal law,” he said. He said the UC “will be subject to civil fines, criminal penalties, or debarment from federal contracting if the university is found to be in violation of the Federal Immigration Reform and Control Act,” the 1986 federal law. The billions in federal research grants could also be at risk, Drake said.

The argument to hire undocumented students has the support of some of the country’s most prominent immigration law scholars, who signed the legal memo backers of Opportunity for All published in 2022. Meanwhile, more than 500 faculty  saying “we will hire undocumented students into educational employment positions for which they are qualified once given authority to do so by the UC.”

Student advocates of Opportunity For All pushed the UC Regents to take the group’s legal theory seriously. Last May, the regents voted to consider  and what that process would look like. Students , but months later were furious when the UC blew past its own deadline on how to proceed at the November meeting.  by crossing the stanchions separating them from the regents, shutting down the meeting. That prompted a meeting between advocates and several regents.

Those regents told the students then that they were committed to a full roll-out of the plan by this month, but they were not speaking for the full board.

“It is deeply shameful that the UC is holding them back from achieving their full potential,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA immigration law scholar and one of the architects of the legal theory arguing undocumented students can legally work at the UC. 

Recent federal rules

The ability to work legally is a matter of survival for immigrants in the U.S. But while more than half a million undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. young are allowed to have jobs through the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, federal courts have halted the federal government’s ability to accept new applications. But even if the courts permit new applications, most of today’s young undocumented immigrants wouldn’t benefit. That’s because DACA applies to individuals who arrived in the U.S.  and are at least 15 years old upon applying, leaving most young students today ineligible.

In 2023, were under 21 years old.

“As a leader of an American Indian nation, for us to sit here and be so concerned and keep talking about risk when the students and their families have gone through so much risk just to get here, only can strike me as patronizing,” said Gregory Sarris, a UC regent.

The UC has a history of upholding legal protections for undocumented students. The university sued the Trump administration in 2017 for ending the deferred action program. That  with a Supreme Court decision upholding the program in 2020. DACA lived on, but lower court decisions since then have blocked the Biden administration .

But Pérez said the UC didn’t lead, as Drake said, but reacted to student, faculty and community advocacy to challenge the Trump administration. Roughly 17,000 Californians  because of decisions by the Trump administration and the courts. 

Donald Trump is likely to emerge as the Republican nominee for the Oval Office. A Trump presidency could lead to a redux in the fight between the UC and the federal government over immigration rights for the country’s young residents. 

“What happens if we have a new administration?” asked Jose Hernandez, a UC regent who supported the hiring plan. “I don’t even think this is going to be considered to be implemented, to tell you the truth, so I think we’re squandering a great opportunity.”

There had already been pushback to the UC proposal from some Republicans, among them Rep. Darrell Issa of San Diego County. He shot off  to Gov. Gavin Newsom warning that California couldn’t “pick and choose which federal laws to follow and which to declare null and void.” If the UC system did approve the policy change, he wrote, “please inform Congress how the system intends to refund its current federal funding, as well as provide a detailed estimate of the fiscal impact to students by foregoing future federal assistance.”

Work and financial aid

Abraham Cruz, 25, is a UCLA senior and undocumented. His DACA status lapsed a few years ago and he has been unable to renew it, so no employer can legally hire him.

He found a loophole, but it’s uncommon: Cruz is part of a labor cooperative where he’s his own boss. He consults clients on immigration policy, research and writing, he said.

Still, he’d rather have a campus job, where managers know to prioritize students’ academics over work. Or he could work with a professor and pursue research in his field of labor studies.

Drake, UC’s president, said in November that he wants to protect students from any legal consequences, but Cruz said students are already assuming the risk of working under the table or in dangerous jobs, often below minimum wage.

“I don’t know what the UC thinks, but if it doesn’t offer jobs on campus students are going to have to find a way … to come up with that money,” he said. “The best thing the UC could do is provide these safe jobs for students.”

Pérez echoed that view. “We can fool ourselves into thinking that our students aren’t working. They are,” he said. “They’re working in underground jobs subjected to inhumane and horrific conditions.”

Another option for undocumented students is receiving an academic fellowship. But fellowships and scholarships are financial aid — and no student can receive aid above the state cap, which is equal to what a campus calculates is the cost of attendance. Even the most generous financial aid package from the UC still expects a student to find $8,000 to $10,000 of their own money each year to pay for tuition, housing, food and other costs. Academic fellowships and outside scholarships can’t exceed that $8,000 to $10,000 personal contribution.

And while students with income could see their financial aid decrease, most undocumented students  to qualify for California’s marquee financial aid tool, the Cal Grant, which waives tuition. 

“I’m frustrated, I’m pissed off, I’m angry that we’re at this point,” said Keith Ellis, a regent representing UC alumni. “I feel like we’ve led on the students, that we’ve lied to you in some ways, and for what it’s worth, I apologize.”

This was originally published in .

Limya Harvey and Cydney Mumford set up a folding table a few times a month on the University of Texas-San Antonio campus to give away kits containing emergency contraceptives, condoms, and lube, or menstrual products like tampons and pads. They typically bring 50 of each type of kit, and after just an hour or two everything is gone.

The 19-year-old sophomores — Harvey is enrolled at UTSA and Mumford at Northeast Lakeview College — founded the organization  last spring. Their mission is to educate students and others in need about sexual health and connect them with free services and products packaged into kits they distribute on campus, in the community, and through their website.

“Both of us grew up rather lower-income,” Mumford said, “so there’s a soft spot as it relates to people who say, ‘Oh, I just don’t have it right now.’ That’s part of the reason we started doing this.”

Harvey and Mumford aren’t alone. A growing number of students on college campuses nationwide are stepping in to provide other students with free or low-cost emergency contraceptives, birth control, and menstrual products.

They are also pushing back against threats to their reproductive freedom since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision last year, which eliminated federal abortion protections.

Although emergency contraceptives are legal in every state, some policymakers worry that in states that ban or severely restrict abortion,  and other types of birth control may erode because of people failing to distinguish between drugs that prevent pregnancy and medications used for abortions.

“Our requests for help have quadrupled since Dobbs,” said Kelly Cleland, the executive director of the American Society for Emergency Contraception, which provides toolkits and technical assistance to help students develop what are becoming known as . Those student networks provide emergency contraceptives and  to their campuses that carry the medications and other personal health care products. The organization has worked with students .

Many types of emergency contraceptive pills are available over the counter and without age restrictions. Students who distribute them are generally not putting themselves at legal risk, especially if they ensure the products are in their original packaging and haven’t expired and refrain from providing medical advice, Cleland said. It’s like giving a friend a Tylenol, one advocate explained.

“It’s really growing and a really interesting new route for people to get what they need in trusted ways, especially in Texas and other states where there are repercussions from the Dobbs decision,” said Mara Gandal-Powers, director of birth control access at the National Women’s Law Center.

Like those of many student groups, Harvey and Mumford’s kits contain products — emergency contraceptive pills, tampons, lube, etc. — donated by nonprofits and companies. Black Book Sex Ed accepts financial donations as well and uses the money to buy items at big-box stores.

The University of Texas-San Antonio didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Across the country, at Bowie State University in Maryland, a graduate student took a different approach to improving student access to contraceptives.

What started as a class project last year for Jakeya Johnson’s master’s degree program in public administration and policy, eventually became state law.

Starting next year,  many Maryland public colleges to provide round-the-clock access to emergency contraception and develop a comprehensive plan to ensure students have access to all FDA-approved forms of birth control, plus abortion services.

As part of her project, Johnson, 28, started researching the availability of reproductive health care at Bowie State, and she quickly learned that options were somewhat limited. When she called the health center, she was told that emergency contraception was available only to students who went through counseling first and that, while the college prescribed birth control, there was no pharmacy on campus where students could fill their prescriptions. She proposed that the school install a vending machine stocked with emergency contraceptives, condoms, pregnancy tests, and other sexual health products. But college officials told her they didn’t have money for the machines. Her research showed that students at other colleges in Maryland faced similar roadblocks.

So, Johnson approached then-Del.  (D-Montgomery), now a state senator, about introducing a bill that would require schools to provide access to emergency contraceptives and other contraceptive services.

The bill, which was signed in May, requires the schools to provide the services by August 2024.

“There was definitely some pushback” from conservative legislators during the process, Johnson said. Although the final bill didn’t include requirements for transportation services or school reporting that Johnson wanted, she was heartened by the amount of support the bill received from parents and students.

In the spring, Johnson received a  from the University System of Maryland that has enabled her to work with her student health center to develop a blueprint for Bowie State that other schools can follow, she said.

“It’s something that in 2023 we shouldn’t have to be fighting for,” she said.” We should already have it.”

“The legislation was confirmation and affirmation of the direction we were headed anyway,” said Michele Richardson, director of the Henry Wise Wellness Center at Bowie State. She noted that the school is in the process of bringing to campus wellness vending machines, which will be installed by August.

But increasing access is more challenging elsewhere.

At Loyola University Chicago, a Jesuit college, members of the organization  aren’t permitted to host events on campus or reserve space in meeting rooms. The Loyola for Life group, which opposes abortion, faces no such restrictions.

While Loyola “welcomes an open exchange of ideas,” only registered student organizations that are “congruent with our values as a Jesuit, Catholic institution” can submit activity requests or reserve space on campus, said Matthew McDermott, a spokesperson for the university.

Oral contraceptives are provided only to students who need them for reasons unrelated to preventing pregnancy, and resident advisers are not permitted to distribute condoms or other forms of birth control.

“That’s where Students for Reproductive Justice comes in,” said Andi Beaudouin, 21, who for the past two years has overseen the group’s . “We were like, ‘If the university isn’t going to do it then we will.’ Everyone deserves this and we don’t need to feel embarrassed or hesitant about getting the resources that we need.”

Beaudouin and other volunteers take orders for emergency contraception by email. They package pills with two pregnancy tests and some pads and liners in case of bleeding and hand off the kits to students either on campus or nearby. In the past two years, they’ve filled orders for more than 100 kits.

When the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs, the number of requests skyrocketed, Beaudouin said. The group posted on Instagram pleading with students not to stockpile pills, because its supplies were very limited.

“People understood, but I felt really bad about it,” they said. (Beaudouin uses the pronoun they.)

Beaudouin doesn’t think university officials know that the reproductive health group distributes emergency contraceptives on campus. And Loyola for Life has picketed their off-campus condom distribution events, but it has gotten better since the reproductive health group asked them to stop, Beaudouin said.

Loyola for Life didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The national anti-abortion group Students for Life of America wouldn’t object to students distributing free pregnancy tests and menstrual products, said Kate Maloney, manager of the group’s Campaign for Abortion Free Cities. But they would object to distribution of emergency contraception, which they claim is an abortion-causing drug.

Still, the reproductive justice groups shouldn’t be prohibited from operating on campus, Maloney said. “We’re not going to say whether a group should be denied the right to exist,” she said, “because that has happened a lot to us.”

 is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about .

Three out of four college students have gambled in the past year, whether legally or illegally, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling.

An have a gambling problem. The portion of college students with a problem, however, is potentially twice that number – .

As an who follows gambling in America, I foresee the potential for gambling on campus to become an even bigger problem. , including on college campuses, since a .

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As a faculty fellow at an , I know that colleges can take steps to curtail problem gambling among students. It is all the more urgent given that adolescents in general, including college students, are often , both because of their exposure to video games – which often have hallmarks of gambling behavior – and the , which can lead to using gambling as a .

The spread of legal sports betting

As of November 2023, in some form in 38 states and Washington, D.C. Further, 26 states allow sports betting online. Bills have been introduced – and some recently passed – in more states. These states include , and . Thanks to technology, sports betting is now accessible beyond casinos. Anyone can access it online and on their smartphone.

More than on sports betting between June 2018 and November 2023. Revenue in all U.S. gaming sectors has increased significantly, with sports betting growing the fastest, at . It has generated about to date.

Sports betting is also becoming more accessible on college campuses. A New York Times investigation found that sports betting companies and universities have essentially . That is to say, they’ve made campuses resemble elements of the world famous casinos by introducing online gambling to students.

These profits have driven increased advertising. Some estimate that total advertising through all media channels could . This includes social media platforms like TikTok, where young adults are . A study in the United Kingdom found that have seen gambling ads through social media.

While advertisers reportedly focus on young adults of legal age, research suggests that children under 18 are also being related to gambling. The intensity of advertising activity on social media has raised concerns and brought scrutiny. Earlier this year, for example, prosecutors in the expressed concern that sports betting and other gambling might spread quickly through college campuses as a result of advertising.

Why college students are at greater risk of gambling addiction

Gambling addiction affects people from all backgrounds and across all ages, but it is an even bigger threat to college students. Adolescents of college age are uniquely likely to engage in impulsive or risky behaviors because of a , leaving them more susceptible to take bigger risks and experience adverse consequences.

It’s no secret that drinking alcohol is prevalent on college campuses, and this can increase the likelihood of other . Like other addictive behaviors, gambling can , which makes it more difficult to stop even if someone is building up losses.

What colleges and universities can do to help

If you’re worried a student in your life might have a gambling problem, the Mayo Clinic describes . These include restlessness or irritability when attempting to stop or reduce gambling, gambling more when feeling distressed, and lying to hide gambling or financial losses from it. Gamblers Anonymous provides a to help people identify problems or compulsive gambling.

For more resources, organizations like the offer information and support to help someone with a gambling problem. Immediate help is available at the national problem gambling helpline, . The National Council on Problem Gaming has that can provide more local support and assistance.

At the Miami University Institute for Responsible Gaming, Lottery and Sport, my colleagues and I are working to ensure that the recent dramatic expansion of legalized gaming is matched by effective guidance for policymakers and leaders within higher education. Many institutions, like the , have begun to acknowledge that widespread legalized sports betting and gambling can affect their students. A comprehensive and coordinated approach is required to protect them from harm.

There are resources available to help institutions, such as the “get set before you bet” initiative adopted by the and others. This gives students practical tips to follow if they are going to gamble, such as setting time and money limits before they start.

Colleges and universities could do even more. According to the , institutions can address gambling risks to students by:

• Ensuring there are clear policies on gambling and making sure they align with alcohol policies. provides examples of how institutions can create effective policies and support student wellness, like . Theirs prohibits legal and illegal gambling at any event related to ASU and reinforces that alcohol possession, consumption or inebriation is illegal for all students under 21.
• Promoting awareness of addiction as a mental health disorder and making resources for getting help available to students.
• Ensuring those who work in campus counseling and health services are familiar with gambling addiction and prepared to support students struggling with addiction or problem behavior. Providers should also be aware that multiple addictions can be present, enhancing the challenges to management and recovery.
• Surveying student attitudes toward gambling to track changes in attitudes, behaviors and norms.

With various sports championships, including in baseball, football and college basketball, taking place throughout the academic year, there’s no shortage of occasions for universities to check in with students about sports betting on campus. Gambling addiction is treatable, but preventing it from the start is the best solution.

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When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, on Oct. 4, 1957, it did more than spark fears about America’s ability to compete technologically. It also raised concerns that the capable of monitoring Soviet scientific and military activities.

In 1958, the authorized funding to strengthen U.S. education in language instruction, in addition to math and science.

More than six decades later, a is raising concerns about America’s foreign language capabilities anew. The report shows that the study of languages other than English at the university level experienced an between 2016 and 2021.

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The second-largest drop – of 12.6% – took place between 1970 and 1972.

This decline continues a trend that began in 2009. Even though we live in an increasingly globalized world, the number of college students taking languages is rapidly falling.

As a professor of Spanish and Portuguese who , I know that having fewer U.S. college students who learn a foreign language .

Foreign language census

Every few years since 1958, the MLA has conducted a census of enrollments in college-level language courses in the U.S. shows that enrollments in languages other than English spiked after the National Defense Education Act became law.

Between 1958 and 1970, these enrollments nearly tripled, from about 430,000 to almost 1.2 million. The bulk of students studied French, German or Spanish. However, enrollments in Russian doubled in the first three years alone – jumping from roughly 16,000 in 1958 to over 32,700 in 1961. Enrollments in less commonly taught languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Arabic also rose steeply.

After 1970, the enrollments in language study began to fall. Arabic was an exception. Although very few U.S. students studied Arabic to begin with – just 364 in 1958, increasing to 1,324 in 1970 – the accelerated the trend, and enrollments passed 3,000 in 1977 before plateauing.

Role of geopolitics

College enrollments in Russian and Arabic courses illustrate how language study can be directly affected by – and have implications for – political events.

Enrollments in Russian in 1990. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to an immediate loss of interest in learning Russian. Enrollments dropped below 25,000 by 1995 and have continued to fall since. The latest MLA survey shows that between 2016 and 2021 alone, enrollments fell from 20,353 to 17,598 – just over 1,500 more than in 1958. The low number of U.S. students learning Russian comes at a time when the current war between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Russia’s role as a , makes knowledge of the language valuable to protecting national security.

Enrollments in Arabic, in turn, were low in 1998 – just 5,505 college students studied the language. Training and hiring speakers with professional-level Arabic proficiency for the federal government at that time. As a result, the FBI had few translators who were proficient in Arabic, which caused in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks.

A year after 9/11, college-level enrollments in Arabic almost doubled to over 10,500, and they peaked in 2009 at just under 35,000.

Expansion takes time

Overcoming foreign language shortfalls is easier said than done. Gaps cannot be filled overnight, as languages require hundreds to thousands of hours of study . And it also takes time for universities to expand their language offerings and staffing.

Therefore, shortfalls have continued. In 2016, nearly a quarter of the State Department’s overseas positions were held by people who the language proficiency requirements for their jobs. The numbers were even higher for positions requiring critical languages such as Arabic, Dari, Farsi and Urdu. These language gaps have to protect embassies, manage emergency situations and more.

Steep declines

After peaking in 2009 at almost 1.7 million, college-level enrollments in languages other than English fell steeply. The new MLA report shows the decline has continued. By 2021, enrollments had fallen to under 1.2 million – a drop of nearly 30%.

Enrollments in almost all of the most commonly taught languages dropped significantly during this window. Arabic fell by almost 35%, Chinese/Mandarin by almost 25%, French by 37%, German by 44%, Japanese by 9% and Spanish by 32%. The only exceptions to this decline are enrollments in American Sign Language, which increased 17%, and Korean, which increased 128%. Korean in particular stands out, as its enrollments have increased steadily since 1974 and have been boosted recently by a global fascination with .

Overall, enrollments for 2021 are on par with those of 1998. And they are only slightly higher than those of 1970 – even though more than now attend college.

In addition to the , other factors have in college language enrollments. As of 2017, only about study a foreign language, and only have foreign language requirements for high school graduation.

Meanwhile, according to the Pew Research Center, just believe that knowing a foreign language is very important for workers to be successful. In contrast, 85% believe that the ability to work with people from different backgrounds, training in writing and communication, and understanding how to use computers are each very important.

National security initiatives

In 2006, President George W. Bush launched the to increase the number of speakers and teachers of critical languages.

Since then, government agencies have developed additional language programs. The National Security Agency’s , for example, organizes summer programs to teach critical languages to students in kindergarten through college and provides resources and opportunities for teachers. The program served almost between 2007 and 2021.

The , in turn, is run by the State Department and offers summer and academic-year programs for high school students. Over have participated since 2006.

Despite the important role these programs play, the MLA report observes that college-level language enrollments continue to decline – even at a time of growing need for knowledge of languages other than English . As history has shown us, these declines will likely have negative effects on national security, diplomacy and U.S. strategic interests.

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Nearly a quarter of undergraduate university and college students are parents, but as they struggle to balance academic and family responsibilities, they are graduating at dramatically lower rates than students without children.

U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross (NC-02) and U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath (GA-07) are looking to change that with a bill filed Thursday, part of work Ross has been pursuing throughout her lawmaking career.

“I’ve been working on this issue for decades,” Ross, who previously served in the North Carolina General Assembly, told Newsline this week.

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About 22 percent of all undergraduates are parents, according to . That number is higher at private, for-profit institutions — about 45 percent.

But studies show are able to get their undergraduate degree by age 30.

Ross’s bill, the “Understanding Student Parent Outcomes Act of 2023,” (see below) would require the US Department of Education to collect data on barriers to graduating college and find best practices for improving graduation rates for university and college students who are also parents or caregivers.

“This should be a bipartisan issue,” Ross said. “Women who have children in their teens or twenties — it’s not political, it’s not urban or rural. It’s just a fact of life.”

The problem is a particularly tough one for lower-income parents, Ross said, who struggle to pay for basic expenses in addition to the cost of higher education and often can’t afford child care.

“We want higher education and community college to be something that helps raise people’s standards of living,” Ross said. “It’s kind of a double whammy if you’re already lower income and you’re trying to get that education and you have this additional expense.”

The largest percentage of students with children attend community colleges, according to the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

As , two North Carolina institutions were recently among 34 colleges and universities that received federal grants to support or establish campus-based child care programs for low-income students from the Department of Education.

UNC-Greensboro received $224,102 under the grant program and Carteret Community College in Morehead City received $105,000.

“I am a big believer in campus child care programs because I’ve seen how they break down barriers to upskilling and attaining postsecondary education for parents with young children —bringing the American Dream within reach for families across America,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in a statement on the grants.

Last month, Wake Forest University also announced it will start a child care and early education center in its University Corporate Center, which the university hopes to open for the next fall semester.

“Every student deserves equal access to education and the opportunities that come with it, but far too often the challenges of pregnancy or parenting can derail a student’s educational path,” Ross said. “The Understanding Student Parent Outcomes Act will help identify those barriers and work to close gaps in graduation rates for student parents so they can unlock a better and brighter future for themselves and their families. I’m grateful for the partnership of Congresswoman McBath on this critical issue and promise to keep working to support the education of all students.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Rob Schofield for questions: info@ncnewsline.com. Follow NC Newsline on and .

Virginia students and schools are still waiting for the federal government to announce the release date for the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, a form that students must fill out to determine whether they can get federal financial aid for post-high school education.

The U.S. Department of Education on March 21 it will roll out the form in December, two months later than its usual Oct. 1 release.

Virginia universities, colleges and educational organizations said the delay and uncertainty about the exact launch date could delay students’ college applications and make it difficult for institutions to determine how much aid they need to offer.

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Over the past three years, the federal government has been redesigning the FAFSA to make it less complex and allow more students to access financial aid.

According to the nonprofit Education Northwest, which has studied , students who might be eligible for aid have frequently not completed the form due to misconceptions that their parents made too much income or a lack of awareness and information about how financial aid works.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed the to streamline the financial aid process for students and families.

“The redesigned FAFSA form is the most ambitious and significant redesign of the federal student aid application and delivery in decades, and will significantly simplify how students, parents, and other educational stakeholders use the FAFSA form starting this year,” the U.S. Department of Education said in .

Among the planned changes, the form will have fewer questions, a simplified process and revised eligibility formulas. In particular, the “estimated family contribution” factor, which estimated how much money a family might be able to pay, will be replaced by the new “student aid index,” which focuses on how much financial help a student might qualify for.

The new form will also provide expanded access to federal Pell Grants, which are awarded to undergraduate students in “exceptional financial need,” by linking eligibility to family size and the federal poverty level.

Research conducted by the Brookings Institution, a think tank that conducts policy research, the changes could have both positive and negative impacts, both making college more affordable for lower-income students and eliminating the discount students receive when they have siblings enrolled in college.

The institution provides for applicants to understand how the new form may impact their their eligibility.

Like their counterparts nationally, Virginia schools and education organizations are worried the delays will put scheduling pressures on students, counselors and college administrators.

On Oct. 13, several national education organizations that represent administrators from such states as Virginia, including the American Council on Education and Community Colleges, sent a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging the federal government to announce the new FAFSA launch date.

“We understand that the Better FAFSA transition is complex, and that many security and other checks must take place before it can go live. We are not requesting that the form be released on an accelerated timeline that compromises any of the work that has to take place,” the groups wrote. “But with less than three months before January 1, the latest date by which the FAFSA can be released under statute, the continued lack of a public release date risks … our members’ ability to do all they can to support a smooth rollout.”

In Virginia, several agencies also spoke positively about the FAFSA changes but worried about delays to the launch date.

“We know that people who attend Virginia’s Community Colleges will appreciate a more streamlined FAFSA experience,” said Laurie Owens, financial aid director for Virginia’s Community Colleges, in a statement. “We are eager to see the improved new FAFSA as soon as possible.”

Some Virginia schools, such as and have already made deadline adjustments for students to file financial aid requests.

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the coordinating body for the state’s colleges and universities, said the delay could especially impact first-generation and low-income students.

“First-time applicants will not have the usual level of support as they begin what to them is a foreign process,” said SCHEV spokesman Bob Spieldenner in a statement. Returning students, he noted, will also have the added burden of “unlearning” an old process.

Others impacted by the delay also include access providers, which help students navigate the application process and must train staff in the new system, and financial aid offices charged with processing applications and creating aid packages.

Spieldenner advised students and parents to begin creating separate federal student aid accounts, as “having this ready in advance can smooth the actual FAFSA filing process.”

The U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to questions about the delay.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sarah Vogelsong for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on and .

Higher education is under increased pressure to prove its value, and the pandemic presented us with an opportunity to reexamine outdated assumptions and approaches.

Opinion surveys capture part of the challenge. While the majority of Americans continue to trust in the value of higher education, the belief that colleges and universities have a positive effect on the country and local communities dropped from 69% in 2020 to 55% in 2022. This declining public trust, attributable to such factors as student debt and costs of attendance, underscores the work ahead. Here at ASU, as the New American University and a National Service University, we have centered the changing needs of students and their families as the pandemic pushed those needs to a new level.

We’re Responding to the Pandemic in Several Important Ways

Adjusting student support. The enforced isolation of the pandemic has delayed developmental milestones for many of our traditional-aged students, affecting their social development, emotional health, and cognitive readiness. Incoming students are displaying behavior we might expect of younger adolescents, with difficulties managing their daily responsibilities, challenges resolving interpersonal conflicts, and troubling incidents of violence, vandalism, and even vigilantism. Students who feel under-prepared for the learning environment may draw attention, albeit maladaptively, to their struggles.

We are testing several approaches to improve conduct, enhance safety, and promote success. In some of our residential settings, where we have noted an increase
in property destruction, our community assistants and community directors will ask students to set some of their own rules. Do you want quiet hours? If so, when? How should our common areas look? Do we establish a type of neighborhood watch? What happens to students who don’t abide by these expectations? Instead of rules imposed from above, students will be empowered to take the lead.

Another approach will be to increase the presence of our campus safety aides, students paid to circulate around campus and in the residential communities. They identify security risks (e.g., unlocked or propped doors, damage), and we have found their presence helps to deter problematic behavior. We are also moving toward the tightened access

controls that were more common during the pandemic, evaluating who needs access to what portions of the residential community or building.

To improve health, well-being, and student success, we are continuing some of the approaches
that the pandemic forced on us while expanding other supports. Notably, we will continue using technology to increase access to services, resources, and care at the times convenient for students. We expect to see continued use of Zoom advising appointments, telehealth, telecounseling, and texting. We are also expanding the use of our chatbot, Sunny, to deliver information and interact with students. Sunny has the ability to refer students to the appropriate resources and alert our teams to students in distress.

Expanding inclusive and compassionate learning practices. We are accelerating our efforts to redesign everything, from buildings to instruction, to serve the diverse range of students. Not only the nearly 10,000 students who receive disability resources or accommodations from us, but all students will benefit from increased flexibility in instruction and assessment. Instead of a test at the end of every course, what about allowing students to choose how to demonstrate mastery of material? Instead of insisting that all students come back to class now that the pandemic is over, how do we serve the students for whom remote learning was a godsend—those students who would rarely speak in class but were avid users of the chat function on Zoom?

Compassionate and inclusive learning strategies can benefit everyone, yet they have an especially marked effect on students with disabilities and others who were disproportionately affected during the pandemic. Requiring students to document a disability in order to receive accommodations favors those with means, access, and resources. Inclusive learning practices challenge us to deliver content in a variety of ways, allowing students to engage with the materials and express their comprehension through
various mechanisms. If we want more students to succeed, compassionate and inclusive design should become the norm; thus, we are working closely with faculty to implement these practices.

Blurring the lines between K-12 and higher ed. Another way that higher education can capitalize
on this moment is to blur our lines with K-12. When students can get a degree faster through dual enrollment or credits for passing scores on Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams, the financial and time investment may prove less daunting. Our ASU Preparatory Academy (ASU Prep; brick-and-mortar) and ASU Prep Digital offer ideal pathways for this kind of acceleration.

We can also move career exploration earlier in the educational journey, to middle school, helping students discover their interests and then mapping out possible choices and options. Knowing the relationship of a particular degree to a particular career will help connect the dots in meaningful ways. If students and their families understand that college increases the likelihood of a secure career, then we might have a chance to convince those critical of higher education that it still offers the most promising pathway for enhanced economic, social, physical, and emotional well-being.

This leap of faith requires that we address those students and their families who choose work over school for very immediate and understandable reasons. One solution that we offer students who tell us they need to work: “Come work for us. We have no shortage of jobs on campus, plus you’ll get a tuition benefit.” This is a win-win for us and for them.

Prioritizing access. Despite the selectivity that many colleges maintain in order to increase their rankings, we must shift our focus to providing both accessible and excellent learning environments. Higher education has long needed to reconsider its admission requirements and allow students
to demonstrate readiness in different ways—such as the test-optional admissions that increased significantly during the pandemic. Increased accessibility will help to ensure a diverse student population, contributing to a richer learning environment. We should also encourage and

empower the return of students who needed to step away from their studies during the pandemic. Furthermore, at ASU we have contemplated next steps for two other types of students: 1) those whose learning loss or disruptions during the pandemic may have kept them out of higher education institutions, and 2) those who may have long ago given up on the idea of a college degree. Opportunities like Earned Admission provide a reasonable and attainable pathway for entry into higher education.

Last year’s State of the American Student report observed, “A public education system built for rigidity and sameness collapsed in the face of uncertainty and highly varied needs.” A higher education system built upon the same principles encounters a similar dilemma. We must consider what subjects are best taught in what ways for what learners. Students shouldn’t feel forced to learn only in the ways that we find convenient but in ways they need, want, and can learn most effectively.

See more from the Center on Reinventing Public Education and its .

Iowa’s Board of Regents voted Thursday to seek an extra $1 million from the state to address mental health needs across college campuses and in rural Iowa.

Regent Abby Crow made the motion Thursday to increase the fiscal 2025 state appropriations request to support efforts at Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa to expand mental health services for students. The motion and the appropriations request, totaling $620 million with the addition, were approved unanimously.

“Our student leaders and our universities would be extremely grateful to be involved in further conversations going forward regarding the specific allocation of this funding and offer their insight as to what specific mental health related resources, programming or staffing might do the most good at their respective institutions,” Crow said.

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Representatives from the universities spoke to regents Wednesday about efforts to make campus mental health resources more accessible to students in need, from offering telehealth options to partnering with national nonprofits.

University of Northern Iowa Vice President for Student Life Heather Harbach said in the meeting that the college has begun offering an app for students seeking immediate mental health assistance. Students have access to the app from anywhere and can use it at any time to speak with a mental health professional.

This is an option students can use an unlimited amount of times, lessening concerns among students that they only get so many sessions with a counselor on campus. The app is available in addition to in-person counseling services, groups and other mental health services.

Over the past decade, Harbach said, mental health needs on college campuses have evolved from more traditional counseling sessions to services that provide immediacy, so students dealing with mental health issues can get help quickly. This is evidenced by usage of the app so far.

“We’re already seeing many of our students utilizing this service,” Harbach said.

Iowa State University Senior Vice President for Student Affairs Toyia Younger said the university has partnered with the Jed Foundation to create a strategic approach to promoting mental health and suicide prevention. The Jed Foundation is a nonprofit that partners with high schools and colleges across the U.S. to aid in supporting mental health of student bodies, implement suicide and self-harm prevention programs and reduce substance misuse.

This partnership is part of the university’s 2022-2031 , and received $47,418 in funding.

University of Iowa Vice President for Student Life Sarah Hansen said a new peer-to-peer support program will be embedded in the Office of Student Care and Assistance for students who feel more comfortable speaking with a fellow student rather than a counselor or other professional.

Research shows young people are more likely to go to a friend or peer first when having issues relating to life disruptions or mental health, rather than a professional, Hansen said

UI program addresses rural mental health

The University of Iowa is also working to address mental health needs among all Iowans with its rural health care partnership. University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson spoke during the meeting about the rural health care partnership and how it will address mental health, maternal health and primary care and substance abuse across the state.

The university is seeking $10 million a year for the program for the next five years, The largest share, $4.1 million, will go to educating and graduating more psychiatric mental health providers and clinical mental health counselors and training more non-clinician providers of mental health services. Another goal is to bring mental health services to more K-12 schools, around 80% of the state’s schools each year.

The university will also put $3.75 million into maternal health and primary care, and $2.15 million will go toward addressing substance abuse.

“Our goal is to not get rid of local health care, it is to bolster the impact and effectiveness of it and really make a network of strong providers with Iowa City being the place that you come if it’s really too complex for local situations,” Wilson said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on and .

Less than half of Hoosier college students finish their degrees on time, according to state — but some may soon have help from new “success coaches.”

The Indiana State Budget Committee on Friday approved $2.5 million to embed 31 success coaches in higher education institutions across the state. Officials also nabbed funding boosts for capitol security and a tornado-damaged state park.

During the program’s first year, coaches will focus primarily on getting to complete enrollment, said Michelle Ashcraft, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education’s (CHE) chief programs officer. And because many students drop out during the first year, the coaches will also concentrate on first-year retention.

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Later, they’ll extend that focus to overall student retention, on-time completion, early graduation and even graduate retention — keeping new graduates in Indiana.

CHE also wants to coordinate the program with the career-coaching provisions tucked within the state’s , Ashcraft told the committee.

The money will go toward salaries, benefits and start-up costs like training and office supplies, she said. CHE totaled the per-coach costs, then divided the $2.5 million request by that number to arrive at 31 coaches.

The effort will serve as a launching platform for institutions.

In their applications for the funds and associated coaching positions, colleges and universities must also include sustainability plans “for how they would continue these positions moving forward,” Ashcraft said.

CHE is laying the groundwork for more robust student support as Indiana anticipates a swell in the number of higher education-seeking students.

State lawmakers this spring authorized auto-enrollment to the . The scholars are low-income students who meet certain academic requirements in exchange for state-covered tuition and fees at Indiana colleges and universities.

Previously, the state said it was spending substantial amounts of money encouraging eligible students to sign up by the eighth-grade cutoff — and less than half did.

The first class of students to be automatically enrolled numbered 40,000 — double the previous year’s enrollment. These students will graduate high school in 2027, and the state will begin subsidizing their tuition and fees thereafter.

“We won’t see these students … for a few years now, but we do have many students who are in the pipeline,” Ashcraft said. “This would allow the campuses to start to build support on their campuses, not only to support current students, but to prepare for auto-enrollment to come in a few years.”

The program is based on a model used by Purdue University for over a decade to support its 21st Century Scholars, according to Ashcraft. As a result, Purdue has logged a 12.5% increase in the four-year completion rate for first-generation and non-white students, and a 25% increase for students overall.

Committee members lauded CHE for its efforts, but also said Indiana should better resource the high school version of a success coach: a school counselor.

“My daughter …  missed two weeks of instruction — advanced placement statistics —  because she was placed in the wrong math class, because the counselors have 400-500 students (each),” said Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis.

“We’re putting all of these dollars to advance 21st Century Scholars and others to help students transition, and enroll in time, and graduate on time,” he continued. “But within the school system, we don’t have enough counselors to guide” students through the complex application process.

Security, park funding

The state of Indiana’s headquarters — the sprawling government center in downtown Indianapolis — also won funding approval for security upgrades. A recent security system review found several insufficiencies, according to the funding request.

The Indiana Department of Administration (IDOA) plans to use $2.9 million to centralize all security monitoring under one umbrella, and located at one site: the Emergency Operations Center at the Government Center South complex.

IDOA will also buy new cameras, new servers to host related data and install a mass-communication system to push alerts to all on-campus cell phones in emergencies.

And Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials are looking to rebuild McCormick’s Creek State Park after tornadoes ripped through the area in April.

“Our property was hit very, very hard in 2023 from devastating tornadoes. Those storms caused damage to infrastructure … and natural amenities,” DNR Chief Financial Officer Kirsten Haney said, as well as “loss of life.”

Haney said the money would go to engineering and design, cabin repairs, group camp repairs, comfort station replacements — restrooms and showers for campers — and more. DNR wants to finish the work by summer 2026.

DNR also submitted the largest single line item on the committee’s agenda: $100 million for a new lakeside inn at Potato Creek State Park.

The inn will have 120 guest rooms, a full-service dining room, an event and conference center, plus: a gift shop, activity rooms, an indoor aquatic center, lake observation deck and boardwalk, playground, twelve dock boat-slips, and parking for 250 vehicles. DNR expects to start construction in spring 2024.

Early in his first quarter at the University of California-Davis, Ryan Manriquez realized he needed help. A combination of pressures — avoiding COVID-19, enduring a breakup, dealing with a disability, trying to keep up with a tough slate of classes — hit him hard.

“I felt the impact right away,” said Manriquez, 21.

After learning of UC-Davis’ free counseling services, Manriquez showed up at the student health center and lined up an emergency Zoom session the same day. He was referred to other resources within days and eventually settled into weekly group therapy.

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That was September 2020. Manriquez, now president of the student union, considers himself lucky. It can take up to a month to get a counseling appointment, he said, and that’s “at a school that’s trying really hard to make services available.”

Across the country, college students are seeking mental health therapy on campus in droves, part of a 15-year upswing that has spiked during the pandemic. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in December noting the increasing number of by young people.

Colleges and universities are struggling to keep up with the demand for mental health services. Amid a nationwide shortage of mental health professionals, they are competing with hospital systems, private practices, and the burgeoning telehealth industry to recruit and retain counselors. Too often, campus officials say, they lose.

At UC-Davis, Dr. Cory Vu, an associate vice chancellor, said the campus is competing with eight other UC system universities, 23 California State universities, and multiple other health systems and practices as it tries to add 10 counselors to its roster of 34.

“Every college campus is looking for counselors, but so is every other health entity, public and private,” he said.

According to data compiled by KFF, more than live in areas with a documented shortage of mental health care professionals. Roughly were working in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The KFF data indicates that more than 6,500 additional psychiatrists are needed to eliminate the shortfall.

On campuses, years of public awareness campaigns have led to more students examining their mental health and trying to access school services.

“That’s a very good thing,” said Jamie Davidson, associate vice president for student wellness at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. The problem is “we don’t have enough staff to deal with everyone who needs help.”

About three years ago, administrators at the University of Southern California decided to respond aggressively to the skyrocketing demand for student mental health services. Since then, “we’ve gone from 30 mental health counselors to 65,” said Dr. Sarah Van Orman, the university’s chief medical officer for student health.

The result?

“We’re still overwhelmed,” Van Orman said.

Van Orman, past president of the American College Health Association, said the severity of college students’ distress is rising. More and more students come in with “active suicidal ideation, who are in crisis, with such severe distress that they are not functioning,” Van Orman said.

For counselors, “this is like working in a psychiatric ER.”

As a result, wait times routinely stretch into weeks for students with nonemergency needs like help dealing with class-related stress or the transition to college. Professionals at campus counseling centers, meanwhile, have seen both their workloads and the serious nature of individual cases rise dramatically, prompting some to seek employment elsewhere.

“This is an epidemic in its own right,” Van Orman said, “and it has exploded over the last two years to the point that it is not manageable for many of our campuses — and, ultimately, our students.”

The pandemic has exacerbated the challenges students face, said UNLV’s Davidson. Lockdown measures leave them feeling isolated and disconnected, unable to establish crucial relationships and develop the sense of self that normally comes with campus life. They also lose out on professional opportunities like internships and fall behind on self-care like going to the gym.

by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Pennsylvania State University found that among 43,000 students who sought help last fall at 137 campus counseling centers, 72% said the pandemic had negatively affected their mental health. An of 33,000 students last fall found that half of them “screened positive for depression and/or anxiety,” according to Boston University researcher Sarah Ketchen Lipson.

Even before the pandemic, university counseling center staff members were overwhelmed, Northwestern University staff psychiatrist Bettina Bohle-Frankel to The New York Times. “Now, overburdened, underpaid and burned out, many therapists are leaving college counseling centers for less stressful work and better pay. Many are doing so to protect their own mental health.”

On average, a counselor position at UC-Davis requiring a master’s or doctorate degree pays $150,000 a year in salary and benefits, but compensation can vary widely based on experience, Vu said. Even at that rate, Vu said, “we sometimes cannot compete with Kaiser [Permanente], other hospital settings, or private practice.”

Tatyana Foltz, a licensed clinical social worker in San Jose, California, spent three years as a mental health services case manager at Santa Clara University.

“I absolutely enjoyed working with the college students — they’re intelligent, dynamic, and complex, and they are working things out,” Foltz said.

But she left the university a few years ago, lured by the flexibility of private practice and frustrated by a campus system that Foltz felt did not reflect the diverse needs of its students.

Foltz returned to campus in December to support Santa Clara students as they protested what they said were inadequate services on campus, including insufficient numbers of diverse counselors representing Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ communities and other people of color. The protests followed the deaths of three students during the fall quarter, two by suicide.

“It should not be taking student deaths to get us better mental health resources,” said junior Megan Wu, one of the rally’s organizers. After the rally, the chair of Santa Clara’s board of trustees pledged several million dollars in new funding for campus counseling.

Replacing therapists who leave universities is difficult, Davidson said. UNLV currently has funding for eight new counselors, but the salaries it can offer are limiting in a competitive hiring market.

Universities are getting creative in their attempts to spread mental health resources around on their campuses, however. UC-Davis embeds counselors in like the Cross-Cultural Center and the LGBTQIA Resource Center. Stanford University’s offers anonymous counseling 24/7 to students who are more comfortable speaking with a trained fellow student.

Mental health services that can be accessed online or by phone, which many schools did not offer before the pandemic, may become a lifeline for colleges and universities. Students often prefer remote to on-site counseling, Davidson said, and campuses likely will begin offering their counselors the option to work remotely as well — something that private practices and some medical systems have done for years.

“You have to work hard and also smart,” Foltz said. “You need numbers, but you also need the right mix of counselors. There is a constant need to have culturally competent staff members on a university campus.”

This story was produced by , which publishes , an editorially independent service of the .

(Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com. Follow Daily Montanan on and .

More and more colleges are becoming “,” taking their physical campuses into a virtual online world, often called the “metaverse.” One initiative has working with Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and virtual reality company VictoryXR to create 3D online replicas – sometimes called “” – of their campuses that are updated live as people and items move through the real-world spaces.

Some classes are . And VictoryXR says that by 2023, it plans to , which allow for a group setting with live instructors and real-time class interactions.

One metaversity builder, New Mexico State University, says it wants to offer degrees in which students can take all their classes in virtual reality, .

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There are many , such as 3D visual learning, more realistic interactivity and easier access for faraway students. But there are also potential problems. My recent has focused on aspects of the metaverse and risks such as . I see five challenges:

1. Significant costs and time

The metaverse . For instance, building a cadaver laboratory costs and maintenance. A virtual cadaver lab has made scientific .

However, licenses for virtual reality content, construction of digital twin campuses, virtual reality headsets and other investment expenses do .

A metaverse course license can cost universities . VictoryXR also charges a per student to access its metaverse.

Additional costs are incurred for virtual reality headsets. While Meta is providing a for metaversities launched by Meta and VictoryXR, that’s only a few of what may be needed. The low-end 128GB version of the Meta Quest 2 . Managing and maintaining a large number of headsets, , involves additional operational costs and time.

Colleges also need to spend significant time and resources to . Even more time will be required to deliver metaverse courses, many of which will need .

Most educators don’t have the , which can involve merging videos, still images and audio with text and interactivity elements into an .

2. Data privacy, security and safety concerns

Business models of companies developing metaverse technologies . For instance, people who want to use Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headsets must have Facebook accounts.

The headsets can collect highly personal and sensitive data . Meta has that advertisers might have to it.

Meta is also working on a high-end virtual reality headset called , with more advanced capabilities. Sensors in the device will allow a virtual avatar to maintain eye contact and make facial expressions that mirror the user’s eye movements and face. That data information and target them with personalized advertising.

Professors and students may not freely participate in class discussions if they know that all their moves, their speech and even their facial expressions are .

The virtual environment and its equipment can also collect a wide range of user data, such as , and even signals of emotions.

Cyberattacks in the metaverse could even cause physical harm. Metaverse interfaces , so they effectively trick the user’s brain into believing the user is in a different environment. can influence the activities of immersed users, even inducing them to , such as to the top of a staircase.

The metaverse can also . For instance, Roblox has launched to bring 3D, interactive, virtual environments into physical and online classrooms. Roblox says it has , but no protections are perfect, and its metaverse involves user-generated content and a chat feature, which could be or people or other .

3. Lack of rural access to advanced infrastructure

Many metaverse applications such as . They require high-speed data networks to handle all of the across the virtual and physical space.

Many users, especially in rural areas, . For instance, 97% of the population living in urban areas in the U.S. has in tribal lands.

4. Adapting challenges to a new environment

Building and launching a metaversity requires drastic changes in a school’s approach to and learning.
For instance, metaverse but active participants in virtual reality games and other activities.

The combination of advanced technologies such as can create personalized learning experiences that are not in real time but still experienced through the metaverse. Automatic systems that tailor the content and pace of learning to the ability and interest of the student can make learning in the metaverse , with fewer set rules.

Those differences require significant , such as quizzes and tests. Traditional measures such as individualized and unstructured learning experiences offered by the metaverse.

5. Amplifying biases

Gender, racial and ideological biases are common in textbooks of and , which influence how students understand certain events and topics. In some cases, those biases prevent the achievement of justice and other goals, such as .

Biases’ effects can be even more powerful in rich media environments. are at views than textbooks. has the potential to be .

To maximize the benefits of the metaverse for teaching and learning, universities – and their students – will have to wrestle with protecting users’ privacy, training teachers and the level of national investment in broadband networks.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .