Iowa has seen a 5% increase in the number of college students who left school without a degree. But some campuses are making it a priority to help these individuals achieve their academic goals.

A handful of the state's biggest schools, including the University of Northern Iowa, are participating in the national "Degrees When Due" initiative.

It provides resources for colleges to reach students who have fallen off their radar and help them overcome obstacles to completing their degrees.

UNI's senior associate vice president for enrollment management and student success, Kristin Woods, said when they make that connection, they can get to the bottom of what caused them to 'stop out.'

"In most cases, students who are away need additional flexibility," said Woods. "So, for example, they might need online courses because it isn't reasonable to come in and do an in-person class."

The program is geared for finding students who've been away for a few years. Woods said it compliments one of their own initiatives, begun in 2014.

Analysts say nationally, the issue disproportionately affects Black and Latino students.

Iowa's enrollment and graduation numbers from the end of 2018 to July of 2020 show up in a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

While the full fallout from the pandemic isn't fully reflected in the latest data, Woods said the crisis certainly has been a disruption in the world of higher education.

"What we found is that students who've stopped out in the last year or two," said Woods, "the primary reason for that has been health-related. And so, it's definitely a challenging time, you know. People are balancing a lot of different things in their lives."

Rising tuition costs are another factor. But Woods said a degree still pays dividends over a person's life.

She said that's why it's important to help those who've invested time and resources but had to stop just short of completion. UNI is trying to streamline pathways for those who return.

"Just this year, we updated, as a university, out general education program," said Woods. "And so, many of the students we've connected with, especially in the last few months, we've been able to update their degree audit and then find that they have fewer courses they need then they would have otherwise."

She said that system update even allowed some students to qualify for graduation right away.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

The Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida are filing lawsuits against the deactivation orders issued by State University System Chancellor Raymond Rodrigues and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The groups claim the looming orders come at a time when the conflict in the contested territories of Israel and Palestine are a matter of vital public discourse, depriving them of essential resources.

Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, is part of the legal team representing the students.

"Our client has made a very brave decision to challenge state officials' attempt to restrict student speech, in a case that they and we hope sends a strong message that censorship in our schools is unconsitutional," said Shamsi.

The state's deactivation was based on the groups' alleged connection to a toolkit supporting Hamas' attack on Israel, which violates a Florida law against providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations. However, neither group has a formal relationship with the National Students for Justice in Palestine, which the Chancellor later acknoledged.

According to Shamsi, the groups recognize that colleges are contending with how to manage increased tensions and threats on their campuses while keeping students safe, but pointed out that it doesn't mean they have to abandon students' rights to do so.

"We take the weight and complexities of those issues seriously," she added, "but it is precisely in times of heightened crisis that university leaders must remain steadfast in their commitment to free speech, to open debate and peaceful dissent on campus."

While the Chancellor Rodrigues says they are reviewing legal and deactivation options, a spokesman for the governor's office said it was "reprehensible to see some university administrators, after the fact, creating bureaucratic roadblocks."



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Illinois high school seniors have new hurdles to overcome to get to college. High school students are waiting several extra weeks to get their hands on a newly designed Free Application for Student Aid. You might know it better as FAFSA.

The delay in the current process puts students behind when applying for financial aid.

Tabitha Jackson, senior seminar instructor for CICS Longwood High School, works with seniors at the charter school in Chicago. She said FAFSA has always been an Achilles heel, but the delay -- combined with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to repeal affirmative action -- has further exacerbated the process.

"It's so frustrating and it's so hurtful to let a student know, 'Because of who I am, I may not have some additional support or some additional support benefits of being able to go to this school,'" she said. "My question is to my students: 'If affirmative action stops at this level, what's next?'"

Jackson added a lot of students don't want debt, and financial aid helps determine which college they can afford. The 2024-25 FAFSA form is expected to be available by the end of 2023.

The cumbersome conditions coincide with a downward trend for high school seniors who are participating in career and college aid counseling.

Doug Keller, partnership lead with San Francisco-based YouthTruth, said its Class of 2022 Survey underscores troubling findings from respondents.

"We found that there's significant declines among particular student groups and their participating in counseling about how to pay for college -- specifically, among Hispanic or Latinx students, multi-racial and multi-ethnic students and boys," he explained.

Keller said the largest gap is among American Indian, Alaskan and other Indigenous students, with a 14% gap between those who want to go to college and those who expect to attend.


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A program giving high school students a taste of college and college credits along the way is celebrating its 33rd year of operation in Washington state.

The Running Start program offers 11th and 12th graders an opportunity to take college courses at the state's 34 community and technical colleges and three of its universities.

Julie Garver, director of policy and academic affairs for the Washington State Council of Presidents, which represents universities, said the program eases the transition to college-level learning.

"By being able to explore those things within high school, which is a safer environment or within those contexts, then students are able not only to get the confidence but to get those skills," Garver outlined. "They are not surprised and learning that transition while they're also taking college courses when they're at one of our campuses."

More than 27,000 high school students were enrolled in Running Start at community and technical colleges in the past academic year.

Jamie Traugott, director of dual credit and strategic enrollment initiatives for the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, said students in the program report feeling better prepared for the next step in their academic careers.

"The confidence of being able to complete a college-level class, but then really to be like, 'OK, I did this. What else can I get involved with?'" Traugott noted. "Or, 'Maybe, I thought I would go to a community technical college, but I never considered that I could also transfer to a four-year institution.'"

Traugott added the program has been helpful for the students who are able to access it but there is still more work to do to close equity gaps in enrollment.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.


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