What must be done will be done. All of a sudden, certain news outlets will shut up about "invasions" and start running stories about how immigrants have revitalized X area or X industry. We could fix the problem pretty much instantaneously if we attached criminal penalties to employers who fail to use E-verify, and yet we don't. There's a reason business likes unfettered illegal immigration and the wage suppression it brings. If it becomes too politically volatile a topic, we'll see a "solution" and it will drop out of the news. I'm really cynical about this particular issue. I think a lot of ethnic groups are going to be subsumed into "whiteness" just like the Irish and Italians and Jews and Poles were. Isabel Wilkerson's book, Caste, is a thoughtful reflection on this tendency. I wish that we could just include everyone and maybe the Zoomers and Alphas will do better than we did. This remains to be seen. I think it's important to distinguish between overall growth and per capita growth. I don't think we're necessarily headed to a drop in per capita growth. Realistically, we have to reduce human population. We're stressing the planet's ability to carry us. We can do this the easy way with a drop in birth rates or we can do this the hard way with a new Black Death. I'm actually impressed with our innate ability to regulate our birth rate in accordance with our environment. Malthus really was wrong!

You can check their university's financial grade at Forbes magazine. A new list should be coming out soon, this one is from Apr. 26, 2023: Forbes 2023 College Financial Grades: The Nation’s Strongest And Weakest Schools

I think the most important thing to develop is self confidence and the flexibility to figure it out for themselves or call for help (either from you or others). I've fielded phone calls on everything from cleaning a toilet because there's an inspection in 15 minutes to which investment fund to select for her Thrift Savings Plan. Eventually they acquire all the necessary adulting skills and you find yourself just being a sounding board for troubles with coworkers or significant others. But there will be some rough patches along the way when you can't really help, they have to do it for themselves. The hardest call for me was the first night dd spent on her ship on a teeny island in the Pacific. Newbs live on board at first and they're by themselves because most people have a barracks room or off base housing. There's nothing you can do to make it better for your kid. They're thrown into the deep end where they're the only new person in an established group and don't know anyone. At dd's duty station, it's even worse because your vehicle is still in transit so you're stuck trying to bum rides off of these strangers you work with to do essential tasks. If you're lucky an older sailor will help you out (this is usually the case), but it's terrifying until you find your groove and your group. Mom and Dad can't help you, you have to find your own way. It's terrifying as a parent. OTOH, it's very gratifying when they do manage to find their way and figure it all out on their own. It's even better when they step up and help out a newbie. After all that, the college application process and studying was easy peasy. I had to help dd out looking up information on the internet because her ship was in drydock and the barge they stayed on didn't have wifi. Dd did the application by herself. I proofread her essay and that was it. I hear about her classes sometimes, but I haven't had to help with anything. She registers herself, pays the very discounted military rate tuition and takes the classes. She's all grown up.

My dd is in the Navy and it's a weird pick and mix. There are manosphere types who are blatant about it, frankly skirting very close to a sexual harassment complaint. At the same time, the Navy is about 20% women and there are quite a few in leadership roles including the Chief of Naval Operations. There's also a very open attitude toward LGBTQ+ sailors. This is probably influenced by naval tradition (let's just say the Village People didn't record "In the Army"). But, you have to live with these people for months at a time stacked 3 high in coffin racks, so it's best to go along to get along and talk sports or what movies or series people have downloaded on their 4 TB hard drive. The ones that don't (usually the hardcore manosphere types that just can't help ranting) find that no one wants to sit next to them at meals or be their liberty buddy. Almost all enlisted sailors and junior officers are Zoomers or young Millenials so they're the target for these influencers. I think their IRL experiences tend to temper the venom for most of them. I suspect that's true for most young people who have jobs and friends and a rich meatspace life.

You have time to wait for your FA packet and still apply to the local CC if it's not enough. The turnaround was less than a week and I think that's pretty typical (obviously, check your local CC just in case). The only consideration that might make you want to apply earlier is if they have scholarships or limited slots in an honors college.

OP, is the inheriting sister also the one who will have to care for them as they become unable to care for themselves? The arrangement seems more fair if she's the one who will have to take them to appointments, move in when they can't be alone and deal with the unpleasant details of toileting and bathing. That's a lot of in-kind labor (both physical and emotional). In any case, your parents have picked their caregiver and they'll have to live with that choice. The other siblings shouldn't feel obligated to care for them if they've been cut out of the will. If it turns out that your parents need nursing home care, they'll have to sell the house to a third party to fund it, especially if they end up needing to use Medicaid to pay for a nursing home. I know that it stings when parents play favorites, but you (and your other disinherited siblings) don't have to play along. Families involve mutual care, but that's a two way street. Your parents have chosen their level of mutual care and you don't need to feel guilty if you accept that and act accordingly. Not having the burden of caring for your aged parents day to day is a gift too. It may or may not be worth your share of the house, that is yet to be seen.

What's your weather like? I'm VERY glad I didn't reserve a hotel in Austin and brave the traffic because it's going to be so cloudy that we're not going to get much of an eclipse experience in Texas. It's really a shame because nephew's school and the CC are doing big eclipse events, but it's raining with low cloud cover.

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin might be a good choice. I read it when it came out and really enjoyed it. It's written for a general adult audience, so not as complex as a college textbook, but not meant for kids either. Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body: Shubin, Neil: 9780375424472: Amazon.com: Books PBS made a series that contains the same material as the book: Your Inner Fish | PBS If you're ever in Houston, the Museum of Natural Science's paleontology hall is organized in a similar way to Your Inner Fish and features many of the species it mentions.

I've also BTDT but with the military instead of the trades. It turned out that having an AA done through dual enrollment made my dd's career path in the Navy and beyond much easier. You enlist at a higher rank if you have a certain number of college credits. They give you points on your advancement exams. You have a better shot at finishing a degree while you're in the service which makes getting a good job afterwards easier. If you decide to try to become an officer, you're further toward that goal. Many people think that their kid will enlist so they don't have to push academics as much, but in dd's experience that is just setting them up for more frustration in the military. Do your kid a favor and help them to get as much education done while they are at home as possible.

I couldn't find a 4th grade thread, so I've started one. I'm afterschooling my nephew who is an English language learner who has caught up to his peers in reading comprehension and is improving his writing and grammar quickly. Unfortunately, his written Spanish is horrendous so we're going to have to add that in. He's a mathy kid so we're just chugging along with that at his pace. We're going to start our 4th grade materials as soon as he takes the STAAR competency tests this month. We'll both be glad to move on from test prep to something more interesting again. This summer he's going to do YMCA Tae Kwon Do and sports skills classes instead of going to summer camps so we'll be able to work for 2 or 3 hours a day. I'm planning to use: Mosdos Ruby and K12's reading program plus some novel studies using Memoria Press and Teachers Pay Teachers guides. We'll mix and match and pick the stories that are most interesting to us. I dug up the K12 from storage and liked some of the stories from other countries. They have some fun writing assignments too. Mosdos is easy to assign as solo work for him during the school year. I'll write out some discussion questions in his composition book and use the workbook for writing practice. For grammar I'll use Climbing to Good English. The Amish really do an excellent job of teaching English grammar to kids who speak another language at home. They're probably overkill for a native speaker, but they are awesome for us. Weirdly, Astroboy doesn't mind them at all even though they were written on a typewriter and are about as ugly as you can get. I also have the K12 grammar, we'll pull it out if we need reinforcement. We might do a bit of their writing for a change, too. I also have WWE 2 and 3 from back in the day. I think we'll add that in during the summer when we have more time. We don't have to follow along carefully because we cover grammar, usage and mechanics with CTGE so we can pick the passages Astroboy will like the best. I'm planning to branch out into reading for information using A Child's History of the World. I have the Calvert workbook and teacher's guide so it will effectively be reading/writing instruction but history based. I've also got MP's guide to D'Aulaire's Greek Myths and their Christian Studies stuff. I'd like to do these in rotation with the Child's History as an Intro to Western Civ. It will take a couple of years, but that's okay. We'll just cycle through them when we have time. I've got some science kits I found in a closet. I think we'll do those over the summer with some True Books or similar easy non-fiction reads. For Spanish language arts, I got Maravillas (McGraw Hill's Wonders Reading program in translation). I downloaded the Mexican and Colombian textbooks but most of their writing activities are class based and very hard to adapt to a solo learner. So, Maravillas it is. I've used Wonders already and it's fine. It's open and go and there are lots of extras available. I found multiple choice vocabulary and comprehension quizzes for Maravillas on Quizzizz. There are also downloadable spelling resources, although I don't think we'll need that. I'll just correct his spelling in his written responses and address any recurring issues. I think this will keep him on grade level for Spanish reading and writing and make sure he's exposed to a wide written vocabulary. I don't want him to get to high school and have to take Spanish classes because he's writing hacer as aser and can't speak in an adult register. For Math we're using Singapore Math US Edition with an assist from Keys to Fractions, Decimals and Percents. We ended up having to stop SM and switch to Keys to Fractions at the exact same place I had to do this with my dd 10 years ago. If you need fractions help, Keys To is a great resource. It's thorough but not overwhelming. I plan to keep going with SM/Keys to as needed through 6B and then switch to AoPS prealgebra and up. This combination worked very well to prepare dd for calculus at the community college where they didn't allow calculators, didn't curve and a third of the class had to withdraw. I'm older and wiser now and it's easier to pick and choose materials and not feel I have to do every lesson in every course. We can switch things up when we're bored or need to work on another skill more urgently. I like having an assortment of stuff on hand so I can mix up our lessons when we need to.

The Atlantic had an article about the effects of the FAFSA snafu a couple of days ago. It's looking pretty dire: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/fafsa-fiasco-college-enrollment/677929/?gift=r2MxgRZsFI80CskTMvE9soVPcok5ib04iDxVQrviqO0&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share I've gifted the article so everyone should be able to read it (hopefully, this is the first Atlantic article I've gifted.) The lowlights: Now most students can at least fill out the application, but the overall situation remains disastrous. The department has processed more than 4 million forms, but 2 million remain in bureaucratic purgatory. And although colleges have at last begun receiving the information that allows them to calculate student-aid awards, issues keep cropping up. Many schools are reporting dramatically higher error rates than usual in submitted FAFSAs, and the Department of Education says that students won’t be able to fix their forms until early April. Last week, the department announced that its processing system had incorrectly calculated aid for about 200,000 applicants. Each mix-up delays when students find out how much aid they’ll get—which, for many applicants, determines where they will enroll or whether they can afford to go to college at all. Many colleges require that students enroll by May 1, potentially giving applicants just weeks or even days to decide where to attend. Even more worrying are the students who might not enroll anywhere. According to Bill DeBaun, the senior director of data and strategic initiatives at the National College Attainment Network, 31 percent fewer high-school seniors have submitted the FAFSA compared with this time last year—a potentially missing cohort of 600,000 students. That’s a larger decline than occurred in any year during the pandemic, and it’s disproportionately clustered among schools with high shares of low-income students, the exact people who are least likely to go to college without financial aid. Another 2 million adults, mostly current college and graduate students, have yet to apply for the upcoming academic year. “Every time you establish any kind of a barrier to college access, it leads to a permanent drop-off in the number of applications,” Mark Kantrowitz, a financial-aid expert, told me. With declining enrollment, small colleges with high rates of low-income or minority students could fall into financial peril, Fitch Ratings warned earlier this month. “We’re absolutely going to see a decline in students going to college,” Laitinen said. “The question is how catastrophic it will be.”

Here you go: Unraveling Havana Syndrome: New evidence links the GRU's assassination Unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on U.S. officials and their families (theins.press)

If he's starting from scratch, his best bet is to look for an online class from an instate school. If they're cost prohibitive or just plain don't exist, he could try to study on his own using Youtube courses (the BBC has classes for a bunch of languages), Duolingo and prep books. If you're willing to spend more, there are private tutors available at Italki and similar services. This will only work if his university accepts CLEP exams for credit or if they offer placement tests for their own language classes and he does well enough to pass. Good luck to him!

I'll give you an example. My dd needed to place out of three semesters of a foreign language as a gen ed requirement for the U of Florida. They accept CLEP exams for credit. If you score high enough you get 6 credits and have fulfilled the language requirement. She took the Spanish CLEP and scored high enough to receive credit, so she's done. She didn't really prep much for the exam because she had studied Spanish throughout school and is pretty fluent. But, if she had needed review, she would have used the Spanish version of the prep book and Spanish language classes on Youtube to review and prepare for the CLEP.

Check his university's catalog to see if they give credit for the CLEP exam. If they do, he can take the CLEP instead of a class. Alternatively, if the CC accepts the CLEP and he's taken classes there, they may give him credit for their language class if he takes the CLEP. He could then transfer that credit to his university. If he wants an in person or online class, you could try other universities and CCs in your state to see if they'll offer the class over the summer.