April 2023

Many of us in higher education have taken notice of the shifts in student demographics, including the rising number of Latinas enrolled in 4-year institutions. For students from poor and working-class backgrounds, college is a vital route to obtain socio-economical mobility. In addition to that central reason why Latinas attend college, other social forces also shape their desire to do this—and, more particularly, their decision to move outside of their families’ homes to pursue higher education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a lot about work. The figure of the essential worker, for example, has keenly illuminated how categories such as race, gender, education, and (dis)ability shape and maintain our work opportunities and burdens. Similarly, and through what many have called “the great resignation,” we’ve observed that more than a few US workers are reimagining the relationship between formal wage labor and their physical and emotional well-being. Workers are inviting us to learn (more) about how work and money—in a neoliberal and hypercapitalist economy—do and don’t align with states of flourishing.