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

Higher ed expands in prisons as students prepare for life on the outside

Mar 6, 2024
Schools are seeking government approval to start degree programs after financial aid for incarcerated students was fully reinstated.
Brandon Warren, who runs the reentry program at Lee College Huntsville Center, created educational resources for people in prison.
Elizabeth Trovall/Marketplace

Brenda Brooks dropped out of college 40 years ago. Federal rules mean she can’t afford to return.

Feb 29, 2024
Now 60, she learned that her decades-old GPA disqualifies her from receiving federal loans or grants.
Brooks started college in the 1980s as a young adult with two small children. Like 40 million other Americans, she didn't finish.
Courtesy Brooks

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

Why some college athletes want to unionize

Feb 7, 2024
A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Dartmouth's men's basketball players are employees who can form a union.
Players on the Dartmouth Big Green basketball team filed a petition to unionize in the fall. Above, the Dartmouth Big Green basketball team in 2021.
Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

The economic implications of graduating college at an older age

A new study finds that "a large fraction — around 20% — of college graduates obtained their degree after age 30."
"Late bloomers account for more than half of the growth in the share of college-educated adults from 1960 to 2019," said Marketplace senior economics contributor Chris Farrell.
FG Trade Latin/Getty Images

Texas' education funding revamp brings big changes

Jan 5, 2024
The new funding approach puts more money into the system and more emphasis on outcomes rather than enrollment totals.
Texas' new funding approach for community colleges puts more emphasis on outcomes rather than enrollment totals. Above, the campus of Richland College in Dallas.
Strekoza2/Getty Images

A year after the Taliban barred women from universities, many remain bereft of options

Jan 2, 2024
The World Bank has warned the ban on educating women will hurt the country’s prospects for economic growth. 
Male students stand in front of a poster ordering women to wear hijabs at a private university in Kabul in March 2023. Women have been unable to attend universities in Afghanistan since December 2022.
Wakil Koshar/AFP via Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

Night School Bar offers college-level courses with a chaser

Nov 27, 2023
At Night School Bar, there are no grades and no credit. Classes are pay-as-you-can. The listed cost is $320 per class, but students can pay as little as $10.
Night School Bar owner Lindsey Andrews (center) teaches a class on art and labor in the front classroom, while customers order drinks at the speakeasy at the back of the building.
Peyton Sickles

An improved FAFSA is on the way, but delays mean students and schools will have to scramble

Nov 16, 2023
This year's form will be shorter and easier to fill out. But it'll also arrive more than two months late.
Colleges use the information on the FAFSA to decide how much financial aid to offer applicants.
Ilya Burdun/Getty Images

International students are returning to U.S. colleges and universities 

Nov 15, 2023
But they're not quite back to pre-pandemic levels, and they're coming from different parts of the world.
The impact of international student enrollment on a university's bottom line varies — are the students are undergraduates paying full tuition or graduate students who get paid a stipend?
Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images