The Weekly Dispatch

We started a new project back in June focused on covering the connections between education and work. It's a topic getting a lot of attention in public-policy circles but not one that's regularly covered on the ground. Here's what's struck us so far.

Race, plenty of Americans seem to think, plays a big role in who gets in. And a substantial portion see White people at a disadvantage.

The wealth gap between historically Black colleges and predominantly white ones is staggering. The top 10 richest universities have endowments totaling $200 billion. The 10 richest HBCUs? Just $2 billion. And the combined endowments for every single HBCU is just $3.9 billion.

Colleges underestimate the non-tuition costs of college and overestimate how much financial-aid students will eventually get, a new report says.

A hundred years ago, Lewis Terman started his groundbreaking study of gifted children. How is it still shaping our conversations?

Colleges educate students, and they produce knowledge. But they also play other important roles in society that aren't regularly examined. Our reporters have shed light over the past months on those other aspects of colleges’ public missions.

Instead of going to college in a pandemic, QuangHuy Bui became a barber. As colleges turn campus life back on this fall, will students like him return to school?

Year after year of insider appointments to Mississippi’s higher-ed governing board, Molly Minta writes, “not only raise ethical questions but are indicative of a system of favoritism that excludes the historically Black colleges and universities.”