Support our non-partisan non-profit newsroom 💜 Donate now

College and university endowments had a good 2023 thanks to the stock market

Feb 15, 2024
Larger endowments — which tend to invest more in private equity and venture capital — didn't do as well as smaller ones that stuck to investment basics.
Endowments provide, on average, about 11% of the annual operating budgets for colleges, a new survey finds.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Colleges and universities may find borrowing harder to do and more expensive

Dec 7, 2023
Their customer base is shrinking and there's no appetite for raising prices, aka tuition.
Some schools are already cutting costs by eliminating whole academic departments and laying off faculty, says Catharine Hill with education non-profit Ithaka S&R.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Getting private scholarships for college doesn’t necessarily mean a reduced bill

Aug 2, 2023
Sometimes schools will take private scholarship money and subtract that from its institutional grant. It’s known as scholarship displacement, and a handful of states are passing laws to end it.
Sometimes schools will take private scholarship money and subtract that from its institutional grant, a practice known as scholarship displacement.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images

Harvard Medical School is the latest institution to opt out of U.S. News rankings

Jan 19, 2023
Harvard Med joins a number of prestigious schools boycotting the rankings, saying education is too complex to be ranked numerically.
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Foreign students — who often pay full tuition — are returning to U.S. colleges and universities

Nov 16, 2022
International students are more likely to pay sticker price for a degree.
Students abroad frequently seek out higher education in the  U.S. And American colleges are seeking them out, too.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

With Roe v. Wade overturned, colleges prep to provide abortion medication

Oct 10, 2022
Distributing abortion medication requires resources that some schools may not have.
Barnard College announced last week that it'll start providing medication abortions next fall, joining a number of higher-education institutions.
Jeenah Moon/Getty Images

Should colleges be accountable for some student debt?

Sep 28, 2022
About 36 million people in the U.S. have some college education, but no degree, yet they still owe money on student loans.
President Joe Biden announced a three-part plan that will forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal student loan debt.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

At some universities, tenure may become a thing of the past. That could have an economic impact.

Aug 16, 2022
Academics want it. Critics want to restrict it. The issue could affect a state's ability to recruit educators.
A Pegasus statue at the University of Central Florida, one of the schools affected by a state law constraining professors' tenure.
Stephanie Hughes/Marketplace

What role should college rankings play in choosing a school?

Jul 13, 2022
The rankings created by U.S. News have become very influential, but critics say prospective students should do more research.
The Columbia University campus in New York City. Last week, U.S. News & World Report said it was removing the school from its influential college rankings because of questions about the data Columbia submitted.
Jeenah Moon/Getty Images

Blackstone sees opportunity in student housing

Apr 21, 2022
The investment firm is buying American Campus Communities, the largest developer, owner, and manager of student housing in the U.S.
Competition between student housing providers can be fierce.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images