Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance will host virtual meetings about equity for up to 8 members for participating institutions each month, in exchange for an $18,000/yr membership fee.

Reported by Higher Ed Dive, graduate student enrollment growth doubled year-over-year, up 2.9% since last fall. All while online-primary colleges’ graduate enrollment grew a whopping 9.7%.

Reported by Higher Ed Dive, while most college sports have been hit hard this year in some way or another, esports haven’t suffered in the same way. In fact, at Shenandoah University in Virginia, the traditional homecoming football game was replaced by a Madden NFL esports match against a rival institution.

Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while higher ed is in serious need for state and federal funding after this disruptive year, some legislators, including David Ramadan, former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, have begun questioning funding the broader education infrastructure budget vs. going all-in on virtual learning.

Reported by Inside Higher Ed, 80% of those veterans who skipped that question about “reason for discharge” failed to complete the application altogether. And after surveying their members, 59% of institutions claimed this answer was never necessary to make an admissions decision.

Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a Top Hat survey of 3,400 undergraduates shows slight improvements from the same survey this spring, including a 5 point improvement in students claiming they had regular access to their instructors, and a 4 point improvement in students claiming they have engagement opportunities with their peers.

Reported by Inside Higher Ed, 47% of all high school seniors have not applied to a single college yet. Likely because they don’t yet know what kind of college experience they’d be applying to. Because if you remember, last March, many students were already committed. They were already in the river. Now we’re asking students to jump in without being able to tell them what’s downstream.

Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Florida for instance, is still requiring their incoming students to take either the ACT or SAT as an admission requirement. This despite 30% of national testing centers currently remaining closed. The results? The 12 universities in the State University System of Florida are a full 50% behind in applications to date.

Reported by EdSurge, Bonni Stachowiak from Vanguard University has started bookending her classes with an “after party”. Following an active learning classroom where students engage in activities, often muted and with their cameras off, she then helps students with the reading and condenses some of it orally.

Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Southern New Hampshire and other colleges are racing towards the design of a $10k degree. But as President Paul LeBlanc states, the secret is “deciding where and how human interaction takes place”. And this makes sense. It is likely that a self-guided, self-paced option will be the first way we find a $10k degree solution. But does this solution actually help the students we’re looking to help the most?