Author: Reporter

The Contra Costa College Foundation surprised 181 students by agreeing to pay off their debts to the community college.   Students received texts with a video message from college president Kimberly Rogers announcing the news on Monday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “Any debt you have to the college is officially eliminated. It’s true. No joke,” Rogers said in the video to the Class of 2026. The foundation committed $31,490 to clearing students’ overdue tuition and fee payments, ranging from $2 to $980, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. This year’s graduates were eligible for the debt relief if they…

Michael McShane, RealClearEducation Last week, Texas reported that almost 275,000 students applied for the new Texas Education Freedom Accounts school choice program. Even with $1 billion in…

Why Most Programs Focus On The Wrong Things AI literacy has quickly become a priority for organizations. Budgets are being allocated. Programs are being launched. Employees are being encouraged—sometimes required—to “learn AI.” On the surface, this looks like progress. But if you look more closely, many of these efforts are built on the wrong foundation. They focus on tools, prompts, and features. They ignore the conditions required for competent use. And as a result, they are likely to produce activity—not capability. The Problem Isn’t Awareness. It’s Application Most AI literacy programs start with the same approach: Introduce the tools Demonstrate…

By Jace Gibson ’26 In summer 2025, Alexa Guadagnoli ’24 (Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance) began a contract as a performer for Disney Cruise Line aboard the Disney Fantasy. On board, she performed in a variety of shows as it sailed both European waters and the Bahamas. Below, Guadagnoli describes her yearlong adventure, and her “suite life” spent on the deck of a cruise ship. Describe the experience of living on a cruise ship. Are there any particular experiences that stand out? What about your experience was unexpected? Learning how to live on a ship was a huge adjustment…

Editor’s note: This piece is part two of a four part series. You can read the rest of the collection here. Part 1 of this series explained why colleges provide financial aid even to students who appear able to pay the full sticker price. In short, institutions compete for these students. Offering them discounts—often labeled merit scholarships—allows colleges to attract students who generate substantial revenue even if they do not pay the full advertised price.1 Although the practice is widely recognized, documenting how frequently it occurs is difficult because of limited data. This report examines how widespread merit aid for students…

Starting next Thursday, April 23, unlimited access to our news, analyses and deep dives will be available only to paying subscribers. As an organization proudly founded as a free source of high-quality professional content (“Online. Daily. Free” was on my predecessors’ business cards), this is a significant change for Inside Higher Ed. While our business model may be evolving, our commitment to serving the sector with accurate, timely and engaging reporting has not changed. We’re starting a subscription program so that we can continue to serve as the trusted source of independent, human-written news and analysis for the sector. For…

Sim­plic­i­ty is not the goal. It is the by-prod­uct of a good idea and mod­est expec­ta­tions. Thus spake design­er Paul Rand, a man who knew some­thing about mak­ing an impres­sion, hav­ing cre­at­ed icon­ic logos for such imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­niz­able brands as ABC, IBM, and UPS. An exam­ple of Rand’s obser­va­tion, La Lin­ea, aka Mr. Line, a beloved and decep­tive­ly sim­ple car­toon char­ac­ter drawn with a sin­gle unbro­ken line, began as a shill for an Ital­ian cook­ware com­pa­ny. No mat­ter what he man­ages to get up to in two or three min­utes, it’s deter­mined that he’ll even­tu­al­ly butt up against the lim­i­ta­tions…

Imagine that you are a California community college student planning the next steps in your academic career. You start by selecting your field of study and utilize transfer planning tools, such as ASSIST.org, to decide which courses you need to complete within two years to transfer to one of your dream schools. At first glance, your path to a four-year degree appears to be fairly straightforward. But after consulting with your academic adviser and taking a closer look at course requirements, you realize that what you thought was a clear path has become a complex maze. The one math course…

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter With more parents pushing for limits on screen time in the classroom, Vermont state Rep. Rob Hunter, a Democrat, wants to make it easier for them to opt their children out of using laptops and iPads.   He co-sponsored legislation this year that would give parents an ed-tech “right of refusal.” A former English teacher, he was never a fan of the shift toward every student having their own laptop. Technology, he said, isn’t making students any smarter. “In fact, we know it’s making them dumber,”…

Join our zero2eight Substack community for more discussion about the latest news in early care and education. Sign up now. Children and staff at Second Street Youth Center in Plainfield, New Jersey, are well-acquainted with lockdown drills in the event of a fire or an active shooter.  More recently, though, the preschool decided to establish protocols for another kind of emergency: the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the area.  Ever since the start of the second Trump administration, when immigration enforcement activity across the country intensified, staff and families have experienced extreme stress and anxiety about the…