Fourteen-year-old Harini Logan spelled a total of 21 confirmed correct words in 90 seconds to take home the 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee title on Thursday night.

The San Antonio, Texas, native joined “Good Morning America” on Friday following the historic spell-off — the first in the competition’s history — to share how she made those crucial moments look so effortless.

“For me it was really just getting into that mindset where I could have that just calmness so I could focus on the words rather than getting stressed out,” she said. “I was a little tense and it definitely was a bit difficult but I think I just decided to focus on the words and just plow through.”

Although she missed a few words, Harini said she knew all the ones she spelled correctly.  As for her speedy spelling strategy, she said she “did practice for the spell-off a bit,” but in the end the secret to her success was to “go in fast would [and] really just be focusing on the word, just reading all of the information as quick as I could and keep on going.”

“It definitely takes a lot of dedication and commitment and like so much hard work, and at my house my mom is sort of my coach,” Harini added. “It takes a lot of commitment … and, of course, a passion for the spelling bee.”

The eighth grader still has plenty of ambitious plans ahead: She heads to high school next, where she said she wants to write a book.

Having a bachelor’s degree remains an important advantage in many sectors of the U.S. labor market. College graduates generally out-earn those who have not attended college, and they are more likely to be employed in the first place. At the same time, many Americans say they cannot afford to get a four-year degree – or that they just don’t want to.

Here are key facts about American college graduates.

How we did this

Nearly four-in-ten Americans ages 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree, a share that has grown over the last decade. As of 2021, 37.9% of adults in this age group held a bachelor’s degree, including 14.3% who also obtained a graduate or professional degree, according to data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. That share is up 7.5 percentage points from 30.4% in 2011.

An additional 10.5% had an associate degree in 2021. About four-in-ten Americans ages 25 and older had a high school diploma with no further education (25.3%) or completed some college but didn’t have a degree (14.9%).

In a reversal, women are now more likely than men to graduate from college, according to the Current Population Survey. In 2021, 39% of women ages 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree or more education, compared with 37% of men in the same age range. The gap in college completion is even wider among adults ages 25 to 34: 46% of women in this age group have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 36% of men.

In an October 2021 Pew Research Center survey of Americans without a degree, 34% of men said a major reason why they have not received a four-year college degree is that they just didn’t want to. Only one-in-four women said the same. Men were also more likely to say a major reason they didn’t have a four-year degree is that they didn’t need more education for the job or career they wanted (26% of men said this vs. 20% of women).

Women (44%) were more likely than men (39%) to say not being able to afford college was a major reason they don’t have a bachelor’s degree. Men and women were about equally likely to say a major impediment was needing to work to help support their family.

Rohun Reddy, a 2L JD-MBA student at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law / Kellogg School of Management and the son of Leela and Dr. Suresh Reddy, former President of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) won the Best Brief overall in the competition, one of the top three prizes of the day at the American Bar Association’s 14th Annual First Amendment and Media Law Diversity Moot Court Competition.

Rohun, whose interest has been about the intersection of technology, media, and law won the prize along with the co-participant, Michael Choi (JD-MBA ’23) at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.” “The ABA First Amendment and Media Law moot court provided me an opportunity to hone my advocacy skills in an area of law that I am deeply passionate about,” Rohun said after winning the competitive award. “I believe that our brief has been so strong because of the natural passion that Michael and I have for First Amendment law and the mentorship that our coach, Leita Walker, provided us through each step of the process.”

Expressing grateful “for the unwavering support that my parents have provided me not just in this competition but throughout my academic career,” Rohun said,  “I appreciate that competitions such as this one are available to help introduce other students from underrepresented backgrounds in law to careers in First Amendment and media law.”

At law school, Rohun serves as Co-President of the Arts and Entertainment Law Society and is an editor on the Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property. Rohun spent his 1L summer externing for the Honorable David O. Carter of the Central District of California and will be spending his 2L summer at Paul, Weiss in New York. Before law school, Rohun interned at several entertainment companies, such as Viacom and FilmNation Entertainment, and spent several years as a technology and media consultant at Activate Consulting in New York. Rohun holds a B.F.A. in Film/Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.”

The annual competition at Northwestern was designed primarily to introduce minority law students to the practice of media law and to lawyers active in the communications law bar. The competition offered cash prizes for superior performance in appellate briefing and oral argument. The hypothetical case at the center of the competition involved timely issues of national significance in the areas affecting communications law. Briefs were judged blindly by a panel of experienced media-law practitioners. Choi and Reddy wrote the highest-scoring brief and each team member received $1,000.

Held via video conference, the Moot Court finals were conducted by three distinguished jurists: Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals; Justice Carla Wong McMillian, Georgia Supreme Court; and Judge L. Felipe Restrepo, Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

“This award means a lot to me because it is proof that the experts in the field have recognized the hard work that Rohun and I put into understanding the complex sphere of First Amendment and media law and structuring our legal arguments in a persuasive manner,” Choi said. “I am also interested in eventually pursuing a career in media and entertainment law, so this unique moot court experience was an important stepping stone towards my long-term aspirations as an attorney.”

Their mentor, Leita Walker, is a litigator and trial lawyer at Ballard Spahr’s Media and Entertainment Law Group. Other winners of the competition included Amanda N. Marino, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, who won best oralist; and Alexandria Faura and Charles Lam, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, who were awarded the winning team.

Summarizing the experiences of the efforts, collaboration and the success, Rohun exclaimed: “I learned so much from my mentor-coach, the other competitors, and our highly accomplished judges, and I am so grateful for the connections I made throughout the process. [It] has definitely been one of my favorite law school experiences!”

Prominent U.S. colleges and universities are reporting a surge in international applications over the past two years, fueled by the easing of pandemic travel restrictions and new policies that allow potential students to apply without SAT or ACT scores.

The Common Application, an online platform for hundreds of schools, found that as of March 15 the number of international applicants had grown 34% since 2020. That far exceeded the 12% rate of growth for U.S. applicants.

The data reveals a tantalizing source of potential students as colleges nationwide grapple with significant enrollment losses since the pandemic. However, those applicants are often chasing big-name schools that are not hurting for students.

“It’s obviously a huge population of young people around the globe who could potentially pursue education here,” said MJ Knoll-Finn, senior vice president for enrollment management and student success at New York University. “There’s a lot of strength in the U.S. market.”

For prospective international students, the past two years have posed intense challenges. The public health crisis disrupted travel worldwide in 2020 and 2021 and threw college enrollment plans into chaos.

The recent growth in applications is uneven. At public Indiana University, international applications for freshman admission were up 11% over two years. At the public University of California system, they were up 17%. Some big-name private schools revealed huge increases: Dartmouth College, up 71%; Yale University, up 99%.

At Yale, one of the world’s most selective universities, applications from all locations, foreign and domestic, topped 50,000 this year for the first time. That’s up 42% from the total the university received in 2020. Yale’s admissions rate, which was 6.5% that year, sank to 4.5% this year.

″More than half of the total increase in the applicant pool over those two years has come from international applicants,” Jeremiah Quinlan, Yale’s dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, wrote in an email.

Yale is a special case because it is one of a handful of schools that pledge to review international applications without regard to financial need and meet the full need of those who are admitted. Others are Harvard and Princeton universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Amherst College. Dartmouth announced in January that it is joining this group.

But the growth in international applications appears to be about more than financial aid. Soon after the pandemic emerged, Yale (like many selective colleges) suspended its admissions testing requirement. It will not require SAT or ACT scores through at least the next admissions cycle. That has lured potential students from around the world who otherwise might have hesitated to apply. “The shift to test-optional has definitely played a role in this increase,” Quinlan wrote.

The pandemic imposed major hurdles in access to testing for students around the world. The College Board, which owns the SAT, found that about 122,000 international students in the high school Class of 2021 took the admissions test. That was down 23% compared with the previous class.

Test access wasn’t the only problem. Health, financial and travel worries have also plagued international students. The Institute of International Education, which tracks enrollment, found the number of international undergraduates in the United States plummeted 14% in the 2020-2021 school year. That exacerbated major domestic recruiting problems. U.S. colleges and universities have shed more than 5% of their enrollment since fall 2019 – nearly 1 million students – amid the pandemic and economic upheaval.

Now, colleges and universities are hoping that the volatility in global higher education is easing. “The pandemic just blew up everyone’s enrollment models and projections,” said John Wilkerson, associate vice president for international services at Indiana University. Wilkerson said he sees signs of a return to normalcy. Some of the international application growth, he said, is due to pent-up demand. Many potential students want to hit the road after not being able to travel for a couple years.

The Common App’s data shows that the top suppliers of international applicants this year, in descending order, are China, India, Canada, Pakistan and Nigeria. Admissions experts point to India as a key source of growth.

Federal data show that a little more than 3% of the 16.5 million undergraduates in fall 2019 were international students. During the Trump administration, colleges worried that hard-line federal policies on immigration and travel from certain countries could drive away international students. “There was huge concern,” said Angel B. Pérez, chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. With President Joe Biden in office, he said, it appears those questions have receded.

“There is a little bit more optimism from enrollment managers,” Pérez said. As the pandemic eases, he said, “the infrastructure to get students to the United States is also coming back.”

Natalie Bitton, president of the International Association for College Admission Counseling, which is affiliated with the association Pérez leads, said she sees the beginnings of a rebound in demand for U.S. higher education. “Two major barriers have been lifted,” Bitton said. “One is the ability to leave their country and get visas. And the second is the testing requirement changes.”

For the University of California at Los Angeles, international applications for freshman admission have risen more than 30% since 2020 – to about 23,600. The surge coincides with the elimination of test scores as a factor in admissions. The UC system’s shift to a “test-free” policy, said Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, vice provost for enrollment management at UCLA, “has attracted applicants who may have had challenges accessing one of those exams.”

For NYU, international applications are part of its lifeblood. About a quarter of its 27,000 undergraduates in New York are international. The private university also has campuses in Shanghai and the United Arab Emirates. This year, international applications to NYU’s main campus in New York were up 15%, said Knoll-Finn, the NYU enrollment chief.

Like other universities, NYU stepped up its virtual recruiting during the pandemic because admissions officers were unable to travel much in person. Knoll-Finn said that has helped NYU draw a more diverse group of potential students. A more lenient admissions-testing policy was also a factor, she said. “We do think that being test optional has probably lowered a barrier for many students who might have a harder time getting to those tests,” Knoll-Finn said.

Upakar Foundation based in Washington, D.C. has announced applications for its 2022 scholarships for citizens and permanent residents of Indian descent to help them attend higher education institutions.

According to 2015 data collected by the Pew Research Center, approximately 7.5% of Indians in the US live in poverty.  US Census Bureau data for 2018 set the poverty threshold for a family of four at $25,465, the Foundation said in a press release.

To date Upakar has awarded 179 scholarships for more than $700,000 to students who meet the criteria of being born in India or who have at least one Indian-born parent.

Upakar opened its application window this year’s Upakar Scholarships on March 1, 2022.  Applicants wishing to apply for a scholarship must submit their applications no later than April 30, 2022.  Full application criteria can be found on the Upakar website at upakar.org.

Upakar Scholarships are $2,000 per year for Scholars attending a 4-year undergraduate program, and $500 per year for Scholars attending a community college program.

The applicant must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Financial need is determined by the family’s adjusted gross income. Scholars must have attained a raw high school GPA above 3.6.  As long as a scholar’s GPA exceeds 3.3 in college, Upakar will renew the $2,000 annual scholarship for up to four years.  Upakar Community College Scholarships provide $500 per year for up to two years; and if the Scholar transfers to a 4-year program, Upakar will increase its commitment to $2,000 annually until the Scholar has received a total of four years of scholarship support.  Upakar Textbook Scholarships are one-time awards of $250.

Upakar has 24 Scholars attending their respective colleges in the 2021-2022 academic year, at various stages in their undergraduate degree programs.

Founded in 1997, the Foundation aims to  provide highly qualified college-bound Indian-American students with need-based tuition assistance so that they could graduate without a crushing burden of college debt, the organization said.

The abrupt school closures prompted scores of students to flock to the Indian High Commission in Canada for assistance, as many of them had been forced to pay up thousands of dollars in fees without warning, only to have their education halted.

Following the abrupt closure of three colleges in Canada’s Quebec that has left thousands of Indian students in a major predicament, the Indian High Commission in Ottawa has issued an advisory for Indian students affected by the sudden change in the status of their educational institutions.

The three colleges — M College in Montreal, CDE College in Sherbrooke, and CCSQ College in Longueuil — soon after pushing up deadlines for tuition fees and requiring students to pay up hefty quantities all of a sudden, issued a notice to students earlier this month that they were closing altogether.

Canada’s CBC News reported that all three colleges — run by the same recruiting firm, Rising Phoenix International (RPI) Inc. — have filed for bankruptcy. The request for creditor protection comes a little over a year after Quebec began to investigate several private colleges, including M College and CDE College, for “questionable” recruitment practices for students in India.

The abrupt school closures prompted scores of panicking international students from India to flock to the Indian High Commission in Ottawa for assistance, as many of them had been forced to come up with thousands of dollars in fees without warning, only to have their education halted.

“The High Commission has been approached by several students from India who were enrolled in the three institutions,” said the High Commission of India, in an advisory released on Friday.

“In the event that they find any difficulty in reimbursement of their fees or transfer of fees, they may file a complaint with Ministry of Higher Education, Government of Quebec,” stated the advisory, assuring students that there were avenues through which they could attempt to recover their lost money.

The advisory noted that the High Commission has been in close contact with Canada’s federal government, Quebec’s provincial government, as well as elected representatives from Canada’s Indian community to provide support to the affected students.

The students were also informed that they are free to approach the Education Wing of the High Commission in Ottawa or the Consulate General of India in Toronto if they require immediate assistance regarding the issue.

In addition, the advisory warned against making payments to any institutions that don’t have their credentials in order. “Students should not make any payments or reveal their personal information to any unverified person/institution offering students visa on payment,” cautioned the advisory.

Comments According to the application for creditor protection by the RPI Group, unpaid tuition fees and refund claims from 633 students against the company are estimated at nearly $6.4 million.

A 12-year-old Malayalee schoolgirl has achieved the maximum score possible in a Mensa IQ test, a feat achieved by only 1% of those who sit the society’s entry paper. Lydia Sebastian completed the Cattell III B paper supervised by Mensa, the society for people with high IQs, with minutes to spare at the sitting at Birkbeck College, London.

This Indian-origin girl (Parents & Grandparents are from Kerala) in the UK has achieved the highest possible score of 162 on a Mensa IQ test, outwitting physicists Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. The young girl’s favorite subjects include Maths, Physics and Chemistry and she has stated to the media in England that she wants to do something related to Maths in her career.

Her parents are from Kerala, her father Arun Sebastian is a radiologist at Colchester General Hospital while her mom Erika Kottiath is an associate director with Barclays Bank.

Lydia pressed her parents all year to allow her to take the intelligence test, which she finally took during her school break. Sebastian completely downplayed the super tough exam–going so far as to call it “easy.” “At first, I was really nervous but once I started, it was much easier than I expected it to be and then I relaxed, she said. “I gave it my best shot really.”

Arun said seeing his daughter score the highest possible score on one of the tough IQ test he was “overwhelmed”. He said: “Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking got an IQ of 160. To be honest, I didn’t really believe it.”

When asked whether she likes coming to Kerala she said that she has been visiting her Grandparents house in Kerala ever since she was a year and a half and loves living in Kerala. She may come back to Kerala after her studies and possibly contribute to the progress of kerala, the progress of India and of the whole world in turn.

Mensa is considered to be one of the oldest intelligence society in the world. It accepts only those individuals as members who score in the 98th percentile on an IQ test. The eligibility criteria to get the membership is to score at least 132 or higher only.

Share this with every Indian and let us be proud of our 12 year old Malayalee Girl.

Hurting after the US Supreme Court announced a decision “that could put Harvard’s forty years of legal precedent at risk,” Larry S. Bacow, the university’s President, has warned that “colleges and universities could lose the freedom and flexibility to create diverse campus communities that enrich education for all”.

The SC has agreed to review a challenge to the consideration of race in college admission decisions, often known as affirmative action.

With three new conservative justices in the SC since its last review, the practice may be facing its greatest threat yet.

The court said Monday it would consider a pair of lawsuits alleging that Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC) discriminate against Asian American applicants.

“Our admissions process, in which race is considered as one factor among many, makes us stronger. It prompts learning in day-to-day exchanges in our classrooms and laboratories, in our residential houses, and on our playing fields and stages. Our students understand these truths and see them reflected in their interactions with their classmates. Diversity opens our eyes to the promise of a better future,” said Bacow, earlier Chancellor at M.I.T. and President at Tufts, in a “dear members of the Harvard community” mail reviewed by IANS.

“Harvard celebrates and nurtures individuality as intensely as this nation. Those who challenge our admissions policies would ask us to rely upon a process far more mechanistic, a process far more reliant on simple assessments of objective criteria. Each of us is, however, more than our numbers, more than our grades, more than our rankings or scores.

Ask yourself, how much have you learned from other people at this University? How much have you grown from conversations across difference? Would these conversations have been as rich if you had shared the same interests, the same life experiences, and — yes — the same racial or ethnic background as your fellow community members? This is why applications of any kind routinely go beyond mere numbers to include interviews, samples of work product, recommendations, and references. Narrowly drawn measures of academic distinction are not the only indicators of individual promise.”

“As the Supreme Court has recognised many times, race matters in the United States,” Bracow argued.

“I long for the day when it does not, but we still have miles to go before our journey is complete. Harvard will continue to defend with vigor admissions policies that were endorsed in the thoughtful decisions of two federal courts that concluded that we do not discriminate; our practices are consistent with Supreme Court precedent; there is no persuasive, credible evidence warranting a different outcome. Though I wish yesterday had turned out differently, I remain confident that the rule of law — and the respect for precedent that perpetuates it — will prevail.”

The SC is taking up two lawsuits filed by Students for Fair Admissions, a Virginia-based group, that says race should play no part in the admission process. The group is led by Edward Blum, a legal strategist.

The group argues that Harvard and UNC intentionally discriminate against Asian-American applicants.

Examining six years of data at Harvard, the group found that Asian-American applicants had the strongest academics but were admitted at the lowest rates compared to students of other races.

It also found that Harvard’s admissions officers gave Asian-Americans lower scores on a subjective “personal” rating designed to measure attributes such as likeability and kindness.

A federal judge in 2019 upheld Harvard’s admissions practices, saying it was “not perfect” but passed constitutional muster. The judge said race-conscious practices always penalise groups that don’t get an advantage, but they’re justified “by the compelling interest in diversity” on college campuses.

An appeals court upheld the ruling in 2020.

The group brought similar claims against UNC, saying its process disadvantages white and Asian American students. A federal judge sided with the university last year.

In its appeal to the SC, the group asked the panel to review both cases and also to overturn the court’s 2003 decision in Grutter v Bollinger, which upheld admissions policies at the University of Michigan’s law school.

That cleared colleges to consider race if it’s done in a “narrowly tailored” way to serve a “compelling interest”. The group’s appeal argued that the Grutter decision “endorsed racial objectives that are amorphous and unmeasurable and thus incapable of narrow tailoring”.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider banning the use of race in college admissions decisions, accepting appeals involving Harvard College and the University of North Carolina in what could be a transformational showdown for higher education.

The appeals seek to overturn decades-old Supreme Court precedents that let universities consider race to help create a diverse student body. Affirmative action is common at selective universities, though nine states including California and Florida ban race-conscious admissions at public institutions. The cases are likely to be heard in the term that starts in October.

Opponents are trying to take advantage of a Supreme Court that has become more conservative since a 2003 decision known as Grutter v. Bollinger reaffirmed that universities can take race into account. The Harvard and North Carolina policies are being challenged by an interest group set up to try to abolish racial preferences.

“Grutter is wrong, immoral, and unpersuasive, and has not aged well,” argued the group, Students for Fair Admissions, run by longtime preferences opponent Edward Blum.

Supporters say some consideration of race is crucial for creating student bodies that are racially diverse as well as highly qualified. The Biden administration joined the two universities in arguing that students of all races benefit from having diverse peers and urging the court to reject the appeals.

Although Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s majority opinion in the Grutter decision predicted that racial preferences would no longer be necessary in 25 years, Harvard says they are still needed.

“Universities across the country have followed this precedent in structuring their admissions processes,” Harvard argued. “And the American public has looked to this precedent for assurance that the nation recognizes and values the benefits of diversity and that the path to leadership is open to all.”

Students for Fair Admissions contends that Harvard penalizes Asian Americans during the admissions process, assigning them lower ratings on leadership and likability, while automatically giving preferences to Black and Hispanic applicants.

“Harvard’s mistreatment of Asian-American applicants is appalling,” the appeal argued. The group said the Ivy League college was engaging in “racial balancing.”

Harvard called those assertions “simply false,” saying it considers the race only of highly competitive candidates for admission and doesn’t penalize Asian-American applicants.

The college points to a federal trial judge’s findings of “no evidence of any racial animus whatsoever or intentional discrimination,” and no “evidence that any particular admissions decision was negatively affected by Asian American identity.”

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Harvard policy in a 2-0 ruling. The case centers on the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s Title VI, which bars racial discrimination by universities that receive federal funding.

In the North Carolina case, the Supreme Court took the unusual step of bypassing the appellate level and agreeing to directly review a trial judge’s decision. U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs said the university complies with the Grutter ruling by using a “highly individualized, holistic admissions program that is narrowly tailored in that it considers race flexibly as only a ‘plus factor’ among many.”

Students for Fair Admissions said North Carolina has “workable race-neutral alternatives” for ensuring classroom diversity, such as setting aside seats for disadvantaged applicants and admitting the top academic performers at each high school in the state.

North Carolina Attorney General Joshua Stein said the university has already implemented race-neutral approaches and has repeatedly studied the feasibility of other steps. “Each time, the university found that no alternative would produce a student body about as diverse and academically qualified as its holistic, race-conscious admissions process,” Stein wrote.

The suit against North Carolina invokes both Title VI and the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which the Supreme Court said in 1978 impose the same legal test. That ruling, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, is best known for first upholding race-conscious admissions as a means of promoting diversity.

Blum’s group filed the Harvard and North Carolina lawsuits on the same day in 2014, saying it was pressing the cases on behalf of members who were denied admission and stood ready to transfer if possible.

The cases are Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 20-1199, and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, 21-707.

U.S. high school students will use laptops rather than pencils and paper to take the SAT college admissions exam beginning in 2024, in a move to digitize the standardized test whose use has declined during the pandemic and as many universities no longer require it for admission.

Students who take the new digitized SAT – once a stress-inducing rite of passage for nearly all college-bound Americans – will have two instead of three hours to answer questions and will face shorter reading passages, College Board said in a statement on Tuesday. Test-takers may also use a calculator for the math portion to the exam.

“The digital SAT will be easier to take, easier to give, and more relevant,” said Priscilla Rodriguez, a vice president at the nonprofit organization that develops the test. “We’re not simply putting the current SAT on a digital platform — we’re taking full advantage of what delivering an assessment digitally makes possible.”

For decades, high school students applying to college would sit in rooms with other test takers and a monitor, and use a pencil to fill in bubbles on a piece of paper corresponding to their answers on the multiple-choice test. The exam is made up of a math and a reading and writing sections and is scored on a 1,600 score scale.

In November 2021, College Board conducted a pilot program for a digital SAT in the United States and other countries. Four out of every five test takers said they found the digital version less stressful.

Starting in 2024, U.S. students will take the test using their own laptop or tablet, a school-issued device or a device provided by the College Board. As in the past, students must take to the exam at local testing sites.

The digital SAT test will be available to international students starting in 2023.

Questions about the effectiveness of standardized testing – along with the COVID-19 pandemic – have reduced the number of students taking the SAT in recent years. Many colleges and universities have dropped it as an admission requirement.

Some 1.5 million students in the high school class of 2021 took the SAT at least once, down from 2.2 million in the class of 2020 due to the pandemic, the College Board said. (Reporting by Brendan O’Brien; Editing by David Gregorio)

Hundreds of students in Boston and Chicago walked out of classes on Friday in protests demanding a switch to remote learning as a surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant disrupted efforts at returning to in-person education around the United States.

In Chicago, the nation’s third-largest school district, the walkout came two days after in-classroom instruction resumed for 340,000 students who were idled during a five-day work stoppage by unionized teachers pressing for tougher COVID-19 safeguards.

Protesting students said they were dissatisfied with the additional health protocols the teachers union agreed to earlier this week, ending its standoff with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) district and Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

“I think CPS is listening, but I’m not sure they’ll make a change,” said Jaden Horten, a junior at Jones College Prep High School, during a rally at district headquarters that drew around a thousand students.

The demonstration followed student walkouts at various schools around the city.

About 600 young people from 11 Boston schools participated in student walkouts there, according to the school district, which serves nearly 52,000 pupils. Many protesting students returned to classrooms later, while others went home after taking part in peaceful demonstrations.

An online petition started by a Boston high school senior branding schools a “COVID-19 breeding ground” and calling for a remote learning option had collected more than 8,000 signatures as of Friday morning.

The Boston Student Advisory Council, which organized the walkout, posted a series of demands on Twitter, including two weeks of online instruction and more stringent COVID-19 testing for teachers and students.

The latest wave of infections has renewed the debate over whether to keep schools open, as officials seek to balance fears about the highly contagious Omicron variant with concerns that children could fall further behind academically after two years of stop-and-start instruction. The result has been a patchwork of COVID-19 policies around the country that has left parents feeling exhausted and bewildered.

Ash O’Brien, a 10th-grade student at Boston Latin School who left the building with about a dozen others on Friday, said he didn’t feel safe staying in school.

“I live with two grandparents who are immune-compromised,” he said. “So I don’t want to go to school, risk getting sick and come home to them.”

In a statement, Boston Public Schools said it supports students advocating for their beliefs and vowed to listen to their concerns.

Earlier this week, students at several New York City schools staged a walkout to protest what they said were inadequate safety measures. Mayor Eric Adams said on Thursday his administration was considering a temporary remote learning option for a significant number of students who were staying home.

Nearly 5,000 public schools across the country have closed for at least one day this week due to the pandemic, according to Burbio, a website that tracks school disruptions.

The Omicron surge appears to be slowing in areas of the country that were hit first. In the last week, the average daily tally of new cases has risen only 5% in Northeastern and Southern states compared with the prior seven-day period, according to a Reuters analysis. In Western states, by contrast, the average number of infections documented every day has climbed 89% in the past week compared with the previous week.

Overall, the United States is still tallying nearly 800,000 new infections a day amid record numbers of hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

American universities are generally held in high esteem around the world, according to a spring Pew Research Center survey in 16 advanced economies. A median of 59% of adults across these societies describe American universities as either the best in the world or above average relative to those in other developed nations.

Even so, the number of foreign students studying in the United States fell sharply during the 2020-21 academic year according to recently released data from the Institute of International Education, likely reflecting the ongoing effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Fewer than 1 million foreign students enrolled for either online or in-person classes at U.S. universities in the 2020-21 school year, comprising 4.6% of total enrollment at American higher educational institutions. That not only marks a 15% year-over-year decrease from the 2019-20 school year, but also marks the first time since 2014-15 that fewer than a million international students have enrolled at U.S. institutions.

How we did this

China remained the leading place of origin for international students, with 35% of all international students in the 2020-21 school year hailing from the country. The second most common place of origin was India (18%), followed by South Korea (4%) and Canada (3%). Some of these countries also experienced the largest year-over-year decreases in the number of students who enrolled at U.S. institutions. The largest such percentage decreases occurred in South Korea (-21%), China (-15%) and India (-13%).

The overall decrease in the number of foreign students in the U.S. in 2020-21 was driven by sizable reductions in first-time students coming from abroad – in many cases due to border closings, flight cancellations or other challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even before pandemic, increase in Chinese students had slowed

While the number of Chinese students studying in the U.S. fell sharply in the 2020-21 school year, their growth rate had slowed dramatically even before the pandemic. The slowdown followed years of sharp growth.

Though the exact reasons for the slowdown in Chinese students are unclear, some may find the U.S. a less desirable place to study abroad. Some observers, including the president of Columbia University, have raised concerns that tense bilateral relations between the U.S. and China are damaging American universities’ ability to attract top academic talent, particularly from China. Still others have pointed to policies put in place during the Trump administration to restrict Chinese students studying in certain fields or even revoke their visas.

Chinese students paid an estimated $15 billion in tuition at U.S. colleges in the 2018-19 year. Still, the American public is open to limiting their presence in U.S. academia. A majority of Americans (55%) support limiting Chinese students studying in the U.S., even as a broad majority (80%) say it’s good for U.S. colleges and universities to accept international students in general, according to a February Pew Research Center survey.

Only around a third (31%) of Americans under the age of 30 support limiting Chinese students in the U.S., but the share rises to around half (49%) among those ages 30 to 49 and to around seven-in-ten (69%) of those 50 and older.

There are also differences in views by Americans’ educational attainment. A 59% majority of those without a college degree support limiting Chinese students, while those with a college degree are about evenly split: 47% favor limiting Chinese students in the U.S. and 52% oppose the idea.

Partisan differences are pronounced, too. A majority of Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party (69%) support limiting Chinese students while 56% of Democrats and Democratic leaners are opposed.

The number of first-time international students enrolling at U.S. universities decreased dramatically by 46 percent amid the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Open Doors 2021 report released Nov. 15 by the Institute of International Education.

But despite challenges due to travel restrictions and bans, 145,528 international students were able to begin their studies in person or online in the United States or from abroad. In total, 914,000 international students enrolled at U.S. universities for the 2020/2021 academic year, a 15 percent decline from the previous year.

In addition, more than 200,000 international students pursued Optional Practical Training, gaining work experience in the U.S. after finishing their academic studies.

The preliminary report did not break down the number of students by country of origin. But a different report released by Statista noted that more than 167,000 students from India were studying in the U.S. during the 2020/2021 school year.

Students from China and India make up the bulk of international students in the U.S., which continues to remain the top choice for studies abroad.

International students represent 5 percent of all students in U.S. higher education and, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, contributed $39 billion to the U.S. economy in 2020.

“The Open Doors® 2021 Report on International Educational Exchange underscores the continued commitment of students and scholars, U.S. higher education, governmental partners, and industry stakeholders to international educational exchange amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” said IIE in a press statement. The annual report was jointly released by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and IIE. “(The report) has been an important benchmark for international educational exchange to the U.S. for over 70 years,” noted IIE.

“International students are central to the free flow of ideas, innovation, economic prosperity, and peaceful relations between nations,” said Matthew Lussenhop, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State.

“As reiterated in the recent Joint Statement of Principles in Support of International Education by the U.S. Departments of State and Education, the United States is strongly committed to international education as we continue to build back better.”

“Despite the global pandemic, Indian students were able to apply for visas and travel to the United States,” said U.S. Minister Counsellor for Consular Affairs Don Heflin, who is based at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.

“We issued over 62,000 student visas this summer alone, more than in any previous year,” he said, according to a press release from the embassy.

“This goes to show that the United States remains the destination of choice for Indian students looking to study abroad,” said Heflin. “We look forward to issuing many more visas in the year to come, to help Indian students achieve their dreams of U.S. study.”

It seems that there could be no better time to introduce your students to Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects, and luckily there are plenty of places across the country to help you do just that.

With the Department of Education releasing new findings which have shown that girls in England are less likely than boys to consider studying STEM subjects, and another study published by the Social Market Foundation and EDF stating that there will be 150,000 more jobs in the STEM field by 2023, now is the time to get your students involved in the world of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

To help create love for STEM, a California-based Indian American student-run organization is inspiring young minds across the globe to the powerful impact of STEM-based studies. We Love STEM, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Ishani Das, the organization’s president, and Anusha Singhai, its vice president, provides free STEM education — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — to middle schoolers internationally, and seeks to inspire and foster a love of STEM, particularly in under-resourced communities.

Das and Singhai, currently juniors in high school, first met in the winter of 2017, in seventh-grade science class, and immediately became best friends. “In middle school, I discovered a love for STEM through my first hands-on Arduino project, a wearable device created to aid people with visual impairment and offer real-time assistance,” Das told India-West. “It was very motivating to win several awards for this product in the 2019 Synopsys Science Championship,” she said, adding that through this project, she discovered she really enjoyed building hands-on tools and coding them to perform whatever she wanted.

Das said this is what inspired her to offer a learning opportunity to any student who may find this application of STEM skills fun, and that may even spark a life-long interest. “The summer after I graduated 8th grade, I held an Arduino workshop for a few 5th graders I knew. This later turned into teaching a year-round Arduino class for middle schoolers at the Cupertino Library in the 2019-20 school year with my friend, Anusha Singhai,” Das added. The two founders attended a Girls Who Code class together, where they used to meet every week in the very library that they began teaching We Love STEM classes in.

We Love STEM was born in the summer of 2019 with only three students in Das’ living room. The organization officially took off in fall 2019 when they taught their first course, Arduino, in the 2019-20 school year at their local library, the Cupertino Library.

“Since then, our organization has flourished beyond our wildest dreams and seeing our tangible impact on our community has been inspiring, leading us to continue branching out internationally,” Das said. “In the future, we hope to be able to continue spreading our mission and to help as many students as possible,” she added.

The program offers summer camps, year-round classes and guest speaker events. It also raises money through fundraisers to help social organizations.

As recently as May, We Love STEM raised over $700 for oxygen charities in India to fight the COVID-19 global pandemic. In the future, the duo hopes to reach more students who are under-resourced and may not be offered the same STEM learning opportunities at their local schools and afterschool programs, especially internationally.

In addition to Das and Singhai, We Love STEM has a volunteer team of Indian and Asian American young women from all over the U.S. Since its founding in 2019, the organization has grown from a simple summer Arduino workshop with three students in a living room into an international organization with more than 190 students, and seven chapters all over the world, the organization notes.

“All high school students passionate about STEM are welcome to join our team and contribute as a chapter director to teach whatever they feel most confident in,” Das said. “Adults can help us recruit middle school students or present as guest speakers. Needless to say, all middle schoolers are welcome to sign up for our program,” she said.

“I really love it. It’s a fun learning experience, which in distance learning can be hard to find sometimes. I think that you get to do something you really love, and I love coding and I’m having a great time with this,” Vivaan Garg, a recent We Love STEM student, said. More information about the organization can be found by visiting https://www.welovestem.org/.

Getting the kids ready to go back to school each fall is stressful enough in a normal year, never mind in the midst of a pandemic. Between the more transmissible Delta coronavirus variant, rising cases across the country and new masking guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there’s a lot for parents to navigate as they plan for schools to reopen this August and September.

On the whole, experts seem to agree it’s time to get kids back into their classrooms. Remote learning set many children—especially students of color—back academically, cut them off from essential social services like free or reduced-cost meals, and took a major toll on their mental health. As many districts have reduced remote schooling programs, even the most reluctant parents may have little choice but to send their kids back to school, short of homeschooling.

The worry, of course, is that in-classroom learning could facilitate the ongoing spread of COVID-19. But on the positive side, a year of scientific progress means that schools may now be better equipped to prevent viral spread in their classrooms, hallways and locker rooms. Public health experts and school administrators now know that layered mitigation methods, including face masks, distancing and ventilation, can help reduce transmission. Additionally, kids over 12, as well as their teachers and parents, can get vaccinated—the best tool to prevent getting sick and to reduce the spread of the virus.

To help parents of school-age children navigate the upcoming back-to-school season, TIME spoke with pediatric infectious disease experts about how to keep kids—and those around them—safe this school year.

What risks does COVID-19 pose to my child?

It’s rare for COVID-19 to cause severe illness among school-age children, but it does happen. Those with underlying medical conditions, such as heart disease, immune disorders and diabetes are at higher risk, according to the CDC. Some 400 children have died after contracting COVID-19 in the U.S., according to CDC data. Of course, while any death is tragic, that figure represents only around 0.01% of children known to have tested positive for the disease. In other words, it’s unlikely that kids will suffer the worst impacts of the virus.

Indeed, while children can also develop “long COVID”—suffering from persistent COVID-19 symptoms long after getting infected—preliminary evidence suggests that the condition is far less common in children than adults. A study by Swiss researchers published in JAMA on July 15 found that only 4% percent of the kids surveyed who had tested positive for COVID-19 were still experiencing symptoms after 12 weeks.

That said, there’s still a lot we don’t know about COVID-19. Dr. Aaron Milstone, a professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, notes that some viral illnesses, like measles, can cause harm years after exposure in children, and we can’t know for sure that COVID-19 won’t have future consequences. “I do think it’s important to acknowledge that there are unknown risks, although small,” he says.

How has the Delta variant changed the risk of getting COVID-19 at school?

The Delta variant is more transmissible than the version of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) that circulated for much of the previous 16 months or so, which means that it could spread faster in schools, just like it does anywhere else. Though it doesn’t seem to cause more severe illness (in either children or adults), Dr. Sean O’Leary, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, says he’s concerned that kids could carry the virus back home to vulnerable family members, or in the other direction, putting teachers and staffers at risk. “I think it has the potential to be bad,” he says.

Delta’s emergence is a reminder that schools will need to stay flexible as the virus continues to circulate. Milstone points out that the dynamics of the pandemic are changing over time—vaccine-generated immunity may wane over time, people of mixed vaccination status are increasingly socializing with one another, and fewer people are taking precautions like masking or distancing (though the CDC’s new guidance may help change that). “We have to keep up with the virus,” Milstone says.

The best preventative method, of course, is mass vaccination. And most evidence suggests that Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine, the only shot authorized in the U.S. for kids aged 12-15, is effective against the Delta variant. Vaccines aside, schools can help protect students, teachers and staff by implementing “layered” prevention methods, including masks, distancing and ventilation, says Dr. William Raszka, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Vermont Medical Center. These efforts are especially important for protecting students younger than 12, who can’t yet be vaccinated.

Could my child carry COVID-19 to someone else, like family members or their teacher?

Children can pass COVID-19 to other people, although the risk of transmission tends to be higher with older children, says Dr. Liz Whittaker, a senior clinical lecturer in pediatric infectious diseases and immunology at Imperial College London. A study conducted in South Korea in winter 2020 involving 5,706 COVID-19 patients found that children below 9 years old were less likely to spread the virus to other groups compared to kids aged 10-19, who appeared to spread it as much as adults.

O’Leary says widespread community vaccination is the best way to limit these risks. “What we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, including now with this Delta variant, is that [the number of] cases in kids basically reflect what’s going on in the surrounding community,” he says. “The most important thing to help schools be successful this year is get everyone to get vaccinated, down to age 12.” And, if schools practice layered mitigation methods, it should keep teachers at low risk of infection, says O’Leary, especially if they’re vaccinated.

Parents can take steps to help prevent outbreaks at schools as well. Whittaker urges families to keep their kids home if they seem unwell, and consider having older children wear a mask even if they’re not going into school—and even if they’re vaccinated—in order to keep the people around them safe. And don’t forget the basics, she adds. “Like washing your hands before you eat, which we should do anyway,” she says.

Could schools trigger a COVID-19 outbreak in my community?

So far, schools haven’t been a major driver of COVID-19 outbreaks. Instead, they’re more likely to reflect the level of transmission that’s already happening in a given community.

For instance, in an April study published in Pediatrics, researchers who studied North Carolina schools with 90,000 in-person students and staff found only 32 school-based local infections over a nine week period, while 773 other people were infected elsewhere in the community. However, it’s important to note that the schools studied for that paper practiced mitigation strategies like universal masking, 6-foot distancing and symptom monitoring.

That said, Milstone notes schools “tend to be more conservative” and take more precautions to limit viral spread compared to other institutions. In fact, schools probably aren’t more dangerous than other activities many kids are already doing, he says. “I would say a kid who’s masked in school is less likely to bring [COVID-19] home from school than they are from bringing it home from their Sunday school group or … a birthday party with 10 other kids where they’re probably not masked.”

How can I get ready to send my child back to school during the pandemic?

If your child is too young for the shot, getting vaccinated yourself is one of the best ways to protect them from contracting COVID-19, as it reduces the risk you’ll spread the virus to other people. “If you’re sending a child to school, you absolutely want to make sure you’re vaccinated if the child’s too young to be vaccinated,” says O’Leary.

O’Leary also tells parents that they should take a close look at the mitigation measures their children’s school has in place, including whether face masks are required, and advocate for more precautions. And regardless of the school’s policy, it may be smart to talk to children about wearing face masks. Generally, O’Leary says, kids are “better than the adults at wearing masks!”

And most importantly, if your children are 12 or older and eligible, get them vaccinated—and don’t wait. People aren’t considered fully vaccinated until two weeks after their second Pfizer shot, which is usually scheduled three to four weeks after their first injection. That timetable means you’ll need to go ASAP to ensure your child is protected for their first day of school.

Milstone acknowledges his perspective is skewed as an infectious disease physician; with his career, he sees an unusual number of children very sick with COVID-19. All the same, he says that seeing children die from a disease that can be prevented by vaccination is very difficult.

“I’ve said this my whole career, right?” he says. “It’s really discouraging to watch people die of vaccine preventable diseases. And especially kids, who don’t get to make that choice for themselves.”

As colleges start planning their return to in-person learning in the fall, the college admissions season is well underway. College-intending students are currently navigating access to the financial aid critical to affording college. This year, nearly 20 million new and returning students will apply for federal financial aid through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The FAFSA is notoriously time consuming. Yet, for many who complete the FAFSA, the process of accessing financial aid is far from over. Particularly for students from under-resourced and minoritized groups, their FAFSA has a good chance of being flagged for further scrutiny, jeopardizing the aid they qualify for.

Each year, the U.S. Education Department (ED) flags millions of students to undergo an audit of their FAFSA through a process termed verification. Verification requires students to further attest to—and, in some cases, prove—that the information reported on their FAFSA is accurate. ED’s stated goal of verification is to make sure that the nearly $41 billion in federal financial aid is going to students who are rightly entitled to it.Verification can take many forms. From relatively quick tasks, such as verifying family size, to more time-consuming actions, such as proving a parent’s unemployment status with a notarized letter. If students fail to complete verification, they may fail to receive federal aid and, in some cases, also become ineligible for institutional or state aid.

ED selects around 25% of all FAFSA filers for verification. This rate strikes us as surprisingly high, especially in contrast to the less than 2% of federal tax returns selected for audit annually. The verification rate is nearly three times higher (60%) for the 34% of under-resourced students who qualify for federal need-based Pell Grants. Even more concerning is when the nearly 25% of Pell-eligible FAFSA fillers flagged for verification fail to complete the process and therefore lose out on thousands in federal aid. By definition, students eligible for Pell Grants must “display exceptional financial need.” Still, verification requires these students to go to great lengths to prove repeatedly that they are poor.

What about the administrative burden to the colleges and universities these students attend? In a newly published paper, we consider the magnitude of these institutional costs. Although the federal government selects students for verification, the process is otherwise decentralized, with college financial aid offices bearing responsibility for administering the process.

We estimate that responsibility for this step in the financial aid process alone costs U.S. colleges nearly $500 million annually. This is roughly equal to an additional 130,000 Pell Grants for under-resourced students. Compared to the backdrop of $41 billion in financial aid, $500 million may seem like a reasonable expenditure. However, this cost is not borne equally by all institutions. We estimate that community colleges—which serve a disproportionate share of Pell recipients—spend almost a quarter of their financial-aid-office operating budget on verification procedures alone, compared to only 1% at private universities. To put this one-quarter figure into perspective, it is equivalent to three full-time staff members devoted to verification instead of other services, such as financial aid counseling. Such counseling might support students to seek emergency aid when faced with economic setbacks that could otherwise hinder their postsecondary progress, a frequent occurrence at public colleges.

ED has recently announced a decrease in the verification rate for next year’s FAFSA filers to 18%. Alongside it, ED has also announced simplifications to the FAFSA, including a reduction in the number of items it includes. These are moves in the right direction; however, if procedures for verification selection remain unchanged, the process will still place demands disproportionately on under-resourced students and the institutions they attend. These are the same students and institutions hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The resulting economic hardship faced by these students and their families undoubtedly will create increased pressure on financial aid offices.

Of course, ED’s role is to be a responsible steward of the tax dollars devoted to federal financial aid. However, evidence suggests that current audit procedures do little to change financial aid eligibility for those who complete verification. Further, any audit system should attend to inequitable distribution of burden to institutions.

To offer some final perspective, why should the federal government require burdensome verification procedures for low-income college students at nearly 20 times the rate at which federal tax returns are selected for audit? If the federal government instead focused on recuperating unpaid federal income taxes just among the top 1% of earners, federal revenue would increase by an estimated $175 billion—more than four times the total federal grant aid allocation every year. That would be an effort well spent.