Let’s say you’re envisioning a career to take you from low-paying and tedious work to a job where you’re fully engaged and headed towards a bright future. Now you’re thinking about college, and overwhelmed with the daunting decisions you face—including costs—and you feel you don’t have the room to misfire. Rest assured: going to college is the best, most effective way to explore any number of career directions. In college, you’ll get a clearer idea of what would be a good fit for you—and you’ll also learn how the current and somewhat controversial insertion of AI will affect your work….

Across the country, community colleges are facing a growing threat never faced before: bots. And not the kind of bot that answers customer service calls, but fake “students” who enroll in online classes to steal financial aid funds. The threat is reaching crisis levels.

At Southwestern College in California, professor Elizabeth Smith watched her class roster swell to capacity — only to discover, weeks later, that most of her students were not real….

In 2018, Cokethia Goodman returned home from her long shift as a home health aide to the news that her lease would not be renewed. A single mother of four, she had only 30 days to relocate her family. Cokethia searched the internet for apartments that fit her tight budget, without success. Ultimately, she had to move her family to a distant neighborhood that required her children to change schools. 

That rental, a dilapidated house, ended after her son reached into the water-filled sink and received a severe electric shock….

Picture this: It’s the first day of college, and as you navigate the maze of unfamiliar buildings and decipher a syllabus filled with terms like “office hours” and “prerequisites,” a thought creeps in – “Am I supposed to know how to do this already?” If you’re a first-generation college student, the answer is often no.

First-generation students – those whose parents didn’t attend college – are stepping into an entirely new world, often without a roadmap. Many of our PowHERful scholars have seen for themselves the unique and unexpected challenges faced by first-generation students. Yes, they bring resilience, ambition, and fresh perspectives to the classroom – but how they manage these unforeseen hurdles will make the difference ….