Support the fact-based journalism you rely on with a donation to Marketplace today. Give Now!

Air conditioning (or lack of it) can affect student performance

Jun 2, 2022
Some schools are using their COVID relief funds to upgrade heating and cooling systems, including installing air conditioning.
Roughly a third of schools report having a fair or poor heating, cooling or ventilation system, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That can impact learning.
Jon Cherry/Getty Images

Colleges get federal guidance on using COVID relief to support student mental health

May 19, 2022
The Department of Education provided ideas for using these funds, including text-based counseling and suicide-prevention training.
The Department of Education suggested how colleges can invest leftover COVID relief funds in  mental health care.
Sam Wasson/Getty Images

Will tuition waivers make universities more accessible to Indigenous students?

May 2, 2022
The University of California is the latest public land grant university system to waive tuition for some Native American students. But tuition costs are just one financial barrier that keeps Indigenous people from getting degrees.
Starting this fall, tuition will be waved for students enrolled in the University of California system who are citizens of federally recognized tribes. Above, an aerial view of UCLA.
dszc/Getty Images

Biden administration expands Pell Grant program for incarcerated students

Apr 26, 2022
It's a shift from nearly three decades ago, when Congress banned incarcerated people from having access to Pell Grants.
“This gives students who are in prison an opportunity to actually pay tuition at these programs that are going to prepare them to return to life, to find a job and to move on,” says James Kvaal, undersecretary of the Department of Education, about the Second Chance Pell program. Above, inmates read in the library at the York Correctional Institution in Connecticut in 2016.
John Moore/Getty Images

Is China’s multibillion-dollar tutoring industry coming to an end?

Aug 16, 2021
Top Chinese education stocks dipped by 70% within hours last month. But what does it feel like on the ground in China?
The hit Chinese TV series "A Love for Dilemma" focuses on the senseless education rat race in China, driven in part by tutoring schools.
"A Love for Dilemma"

Baltimore students get a "taste of normalcy" at center for remote learning

Nov 12, 2020
Amid the pandemic, about 1,000 of the most vulnerable students have been attending a form of in-person school.
Christian Muñoz Aguilar sits at his workstation. The 11-year-old helped supervise his four siblings while trying to do his own schoolwork.
Amy Scott/Marketplace

K-12 public schools still count on kids to show up for funding

Nov 9, 2020
With so many schools online, screen fatigue, parents opting out and other coronavirus-driven variables, how will districts get the funds they need?
A teacher and student wearing masks speak between classes at Rippowam Middle School in September in Stamford, Connecticut.
John Moore/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

For international students staying in the U.S., COVID-19 closures led to a scramble for housing

Mar 31, 2020
As schools closed, some students wondered: Where should I go next?
Not all international students could afford to return home after campuses closed.
Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

More Chinese students studying abroad return to China

Aug 27, 2019
In 2017 and 2018 some one million students studying abroad returned to China.
Prince Jiang left his life in Indiana to become the first certified Lego professional builder in mainland China.
Courtesy of Prince Jiang

Students want upscale dorm accommodations; retailers take note

Aug 24, 2018
Gone are the days when a faded comforter from childhood was suitable for students.
An independent survey from consulting firm Deloitte estimates parents will spend $25.5 billion on back-to-college purchases in 2018. Above, a residential hall at the University of Central Florida.
Renata Sago/Marketplace