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Stephanie Hughes

Senior Reporter

SHORT BIO

Stephanie Hughes is a senior reporter at Marketplace. She’s focused on education and the economy, and lives in Brooklyn.

She's reported on topics including the effectiveness of technology used by schools to prevent violence, startups that translate global climate data for homebuyers, and why theater majors are getting jobs writing for chatbots.

Previously, she worked as a producer for Bloomberg, where she covered finance, technology, and economics. Before that, she worked as the senior producer for “Maryland Morning,” broadcast on WYPR, the NPR affiliate in Baltimore. She’s also reported for other media outlets, including NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” “The Takeaway,” and Salon.

At WYPR, she helped produce the year-long, multi-platform series “The Lines Between Us,” which won a 2014 duPont-Columbia Award. She’s also interested in using crowdsourcing to create online projects, such as this interactive map of flags around Maryland, made from listener contributions.

A native of southern Delaware, Stephanie graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in communications, studying at the Annenberg School. Before she found her way to radio, she worked in the children’s division of the publishing house Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Latest Stories (483)

Inflation, high interest rates, and access are all part of credit card debt exceeding $1 trillion

Aug 9, 2023
A strong labor market also means people feel more confident they'll be able to pay the debt back.
Gen Zers are are growing their credit card balances at a faster pace than any other generation, and are confident they'll be able to pay it back in the future.
Getty Images

Why the market for expensive pasta sauce is expected to grow

Aug 8, 2023
The Campbell Soup Company is acquiring Sovos Brands, maker of Rao’s pasta sauce. It’s pricey, but with the economic future iffy, more people may decide to trade eating out for buying premium ingredients at home.
Campbell CEO argues that while Rao's sauce might seem expensive, it's affordable compared to going out to eat.
Spencer Platt/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

The economic anthem of the moment depends on how you read the data

Aug 1, 2023
Fewer workers are quitting their jobs and employers are hiring less. So are we in for "Wheel in the Sky" or "Bad Moon Rising"?
The song economist Sarah Wolfe uses to describe our current economic moment: Journey's "Wheel in the Sky."
Denise Truscello/Getty Images for iHeartMedia

Perks of being a legacy student can go beyond the admissions office

Jul 31, 2023
While some colleges are dropping their legacy admissions policy, there are less formal benefits for those with family connections.
Occidental College, a Los Angeles private school, is among the latest institutions to end legacy admissions.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Could electric planes tempt Americans to fly short distances instead of driving?

Jul 26, 2023
Aviation company Surf Air Mobility is developing an electric engine to power planes during short jaunts. But the market is still untested.
Eviation's "Alice", the world's first all-electric commuter airplane, flew its first test flight last September. Companies are eyeing electric planes  to serve passengers taking short flights.
Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images

Piano movers, inspectors and more feel the pain of housing market slowdown

Jul 24, 2023
More people are staying put, which means they’re not paying for the adjacent services we need when buying a home.
With more people staying put, there's less of a need for moving-related services, like movers.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

With existing home inventory low, there are economic incentives to build more

Jul 21, 2023
But one economist warns it’ll “take decades of building, not just one good year, for the market to come back into a healthy place.”
The number of permits to build new single-family homes rose in June to the highest it's been in 12 months, according to federal data released this week.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Superintendents have always been politicians. Now they have to be diplomats too.

Jul 19, 2023
In a Rand survey, 80% of superintendents call their jobs stressful, largely because of the intrusion of political issues into schooling.
Heather Schwartz of the Rand Corp. suggests providing more communication tools to school leaders.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

It's getting harder to obtain loans. That's exactly what the Fed wants.

Jul 18, 2023
Fewer loans means less consumer spending, and less consumer spending means lower inflation.
"Most people's financial wiggle room is pretty small, even before they have to start repaying their student loan," said Matt Schulz at LendingTree.
eric1513/Getty Images