Mental and Behavioral Health
In an op-ed in the Daily Texan, Spencer Buckner describes seeking help at the University of Texas Austin Counseling and Mental Health Center, writing “The paranoia I had about being rejected or judged was totally unfounded.” He encourages other students to do the same if they are struggling with a mental health issue.
At a retreat last week, the University of Minnesota Board of Regents and new university President Joan Gabel said that addressing student mental health is a top priority, describing the current national landscape as a “crisis.” She presented various statistics about how current and future students are dealing with more mental health concerns than previous generations. Also at the meeting, senior associate athletic director Joi Thomas told the Board of Regents that between 30% and 40% of Minnesota athletes used the athletic department’s sports psychology services last school year. “What we’ve seen is our student-athletes are very aware,” said Thomas. “We are seeing students coming to campus with much more mental health needs than we’ve ever seen before.” And she said that coaches and teammates are getting better at recognizing when others are experiencing mental health issues. “We want them academically successful,” Gabel said. “We want their beyond-the-classroom experience to be fulfilling. We want them to graduate in a timely way … become employed, continue to graduate school or whatever else is their next chapter. They need to be healthy in every sense of that word to have the best chance of doing that.” Gabel also discussed campus climate and inclusion, outlining what she considers to be a concerning disparity among white and African American students about feeling a sense of belonging at the University.
Diversity and Inclusion
Last year the University of Chicago announced that it would drop its ACT/SAT requirement in hopes of enrolling more underrepresented students, becoming the most selective institution yet to do so. The university’s new test-optional policy is one part of a broad initiative that’s helping the university diversify its campus. The UChicago Empower Initiative includes an expanded financial-aid program that provides full-tuition scholarships to students whose families earn less than $125,000 a year; families earning less than $60,000 a year don’t pay for tuition, room, and board. First-generation students now receive at least $20,000 in scholarships over four years, plus a paid summer internship. This fall, Chicago says it expects to welcome a record number of students from underrepresented backgrounds, including a 20 percent increase in first-generation and low-income students. According to the university, Hispanic students will represent 17 percent of the incoming class, and black students will represent 10 percent – both all-time highs. And about 14 percent of incoming students are eligible for federal Pell Grants, up from 11 percent.
As Congress considers offering additional inmates financial aid for college, California’s overhaul of prison education offers a blueprint for other states. California’s current policy is to provide face-to-face higher education classes in almost all of its prisons. In 2014, California passed a law allowing in-person classes, rather than just correspondence courses (or distance learning). That year, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reports the number of successfully completed college classes jumped to 13,301 from the previous year’s 5,725. By 2017, about 4,500 prisoners were enrolled in community college with tuition paid through a state financial aid program, up from zero prisoners in 2014. While other states have some prisons that offer in-person education, California is the only state offering classes in nearly every prison, taught by educators from nearby colleges, for credits that can transfer and count toward degrees.
In an op-ed in the Hechinger Report, Lindsay Jones, the president and CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, and Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, argue that college leaders and faculty must help students with disabilities have a more engaged and positive college experience. This includes helping with self-advocacy skills, working to increase accessibility on college campuses across the country and defeating the stigma that often holds students with disabilities back. They write, “While strides have been made in recent years to welcome and support college students with a wide range of disabilities, continuing to improve in this area will benefit both students and the institutions they attend.”
Sexual Assault and Title IX
A former gynecologist who worked for the University of California, Los Angeles has been accused of sexually assaulting nine more women in two lawsuits. The lawsuits state the women were assaulted by Dr. James Heaps during examinations between 1989 and 2017. Heaps has been criminally charged with the sexual battery of two patients but denies any wrongdoing. He has pleaded not guilty. The most recent lawsuits were filed against Heaps, the university system’s regents and other parties. Three of the nine women were UCLA students at the time of the alleged assaults. The university has said its investigation into the gynecologist began in December 2017, though officials did not alert the campus community of the allegations until Heaps was in court last month.
Daniel Drill-Mellum, a former University of Minnesota student, assaulted multiple women before he faced any consequences for his actions. In a poignant article, the Atlantic explores why his accusers didn’t come forward sooner.
College Affordability
In a lawsuit filed in federal court last week, the American Federation of Teachers accused the Education Department and its secretary, Betsy DeVos, of “gross mismanagement” of a loan-forgiveness program. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, meant to encourage people to pursue careers in the public interest, has come under scrutiny for a rocky rollout. Thousands of people expecting relief on their student loans have remained burdened with high balances.
A new study released by the U.S. Department of Education found that students who completed their bachelor’s degrees at for-profit schools in the 2015-16 academic year took on more debt than other students, and took longer to finish their degrees; on average more than eight years compared to about four years for students who received their degrees at nonprofit colleges. “It’s a buyer-beware situation,” said Erin Dunlop Velez, the report’s lead author. “There are more (for-profit) students borrowing, and in addition, they’re borrowing a lot more.” The study also noted that, for-profit students were less likely to land a job after graduating. Nearly 9% were unemployed, compared with 5% of students at nonprofit public and private colleges.
At a convening organized by the Vera Institute, proponents of college education in prison marked the successes the Second Chance Pell pilot program, the three-year-old Obama administration initiative that offers Pell Grants to incarcerated students through 64 participating colleges. The larger goal for many criminal justice reformers is full reinstatement of Pell Grants for incarcerated students. Vivian Nixon, the executive director of the College and Community Fellowship encouraged lawmakers to take the next step: lifting the 1994 ban on federal student aid in prisons. At the event, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos reaffirmed her support for Second Chance Pell and said it would be up to lawmakers to decide how prison education should be expanded further.
In the Chronicle, Goldie Blumenstyk examines why the political tide is turning on providing pell grants for incarcerated students. The Restoring Education and Learning Act that would lift the ban that keeps the incarcerated and the formerly incarcerated from receiving Pell Grants has gained cosponsors from both parties, and even has the U.S. secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, championing the idea. As the article states, it is likely the evidence. A meta-analysis by the RAND Corporation reported that inmates who participated in correctional-education programs had 43 percent lower odds of recidivism than those who did not.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment to its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for the 2020 fiscal year that would require the U.S. Department of Defense to audit financially shaky for-profit colleges that enroll members of the military. It also requires the department to keep a public, online list of how much each college receives from the agency’s Tuition Assistance program. It was supported by most House Democrats and 20 House Republicans.
NPR explores what might happen if the government were to adopt a student debt forgiveness program like the ones proposed by presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. According to recent research, eliminating all student debt, per Sanders’ plan, would stimulate the economy, but increase the wealth gap between white and black households. To decrease the racial wealth gap, researchers recommended a plan like Warren’s, which eliminates more debt for borrowers who make less. But, according to a recent analysis by the Brookings Institutions, even Warren’s proposal would help those who are less likely to struggle with paying back their loans. The analysis states, “The bottom 20 percent of borrowers by income get only 4 percent of the savings.” And, some economists fear that wiping out debt on a wide scale could contribute to the rising cost of college, if students take out loans expecting debt forgiveness down the line.
University of Texas-Austin announced it is offering full tuition scholarships to in-state undergraduates whose families make $65,000 or less per year. The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted unanimously to establish a $160 million endowment, drawing from the state’s Permanent University Fund to begin the program in the fall of 2020.
Basic Needs
There is a growing body of research saying that college students are routinely going hungry, but it is inconsistent in describing the scale of the problem. According to the Atlantic, conservative critics of research on campus food insecurity have used the lack of definitive, nationally representative samples to discount the work and oppose interventions to assist these college students. A new bill, released by Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, with companion legislation sponsored in the House by Representative Jahana Hayes (CT) and Representative Marcia Fudge (OH), aims to eliminate the doubt about the research surrounding food insecurity among college students. The bill, called, Closing the College Hunger Gap Act, would require federal data collection on food and housing insecurity. “This bill is important so that we have a real, consistent national window on where student hunger is happening, where it’s the worst, and [which] schools are creating interventions that make a difference,” Murphy said. “The most important thing is to understand where it exists, and who’s doing well to combat it. And until you standardize the data, you can’t really compare interventions.”
Policy
Diverse Education asked scholars to critique White House higher education policies and the proposals of the 2020 Democratic Candidates. The current administration has implemented or recommended various controversial policies and positions, including their support for legal challenges to affirmative action, opposition to continuing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, warning to schools that not enforcing freedom of speech rights could result in loss of federal research dollars, proposed revisions to Title IX guidance, and apparent leniency with for-profit institutions, a sector under fire for fraudulent practices and poor student outcomes.
