Older students are returning to classes at California’s 116 community colleges. And, pitch us on ambitious, local higher ed stories.

‘Here, I don’t feel alone’

Twice a week, Hermelinda Figueroa, 80, heads over to San Diego’s College of Continuing Education for her class on English as a second language.

“I come to these English classes because here, I don’t feel alone. I chat with my classmates, and they greet me back,” she told Adam Echelman at our partner CalMatters.

Figueroa is among the older students returning to California’s community colleges and boosting enrollment numbers that plummeted during the pandemic. She enrolled last year when an in-person option became available.

Last year, the state’s community colleges saw an 11% increase in students over the age of 50 compared to the previous year — the highest percentage increase of any age group and just above the rate for students under 20, Adam writes.

We’re committed to deepening coverage of community colleges around the country. We’re looking forward to doing more of this work in the new year.

++ Lisa Philip, our reporter at WBEZ Chicago, moderated an in-person discussion this week about student loan debt. Congrats to Lisa and WBEZ on a successful event! You can read Lisa’s coverage here.

Support our work

By the end of next year, the U.S. will have lost one-third of the newspapers it had in 2005, according to a new report from the Medill Local News Initiative.

We’re working to strengthen local news despite those headwinds. Next year, we hope to double our local network to 20 locations. And, we’ve invited local newsrooms to pitch us on ideas for one-time story collaborations — another effort to increase higher ed coverage.

We can’t reach these goals without you. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support this work — now through Dec. 31, donations to Open Campus will be doubled up to $20,000.

Two ways to work with us

• Applications are due Nov. 27 to join the spring cohort of our HBCU Student Journalism Network. We’ll pay six fellows to work (remotely!) 10-15 hours a week, write stories that could wind up in outlets like The Washington Post and Capital B, and meet peers and professional connections from around the country. Learn more and apply.

• Pitch us on your ambitious, one-time higher ed story ideas! We’ll give newsrooms whose stories we select $10,000, and we’ll guide reporters through the process. Learn more and pitch us by Jan. 15.

Elsewhere on Open Campus

From Texas: Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp will recommend that the Board of Regents name Mark Welsh III, interim leader of Texas A&M University, as the sole finalist for the role. That was a scoop this week from Kate McGee, one of our reporters at the Texas Tribune.

“Since becoming interim president, Welsh has set a new tone on campus, hosting dozens of listening sessions with faculty, students and staff,” Kate writes. Welsh took over in July after Kathy Banks — who had been president for two years — resigned amid fallout from the bungled hiring of a Black journalism professor.

++ Catch up on the stakes in Texas. We spoke with Kate over the summer in a webinar about political interference on college campuses. (You can watch the whole thing here, using this passcode: Mq7=9u9m.)

From Colorado: Jason Gonzales at our partner Chalkbeat Colorado spotlights an effort to increase the number of Black male teachers, who make up just 2% of the population nationwide.

From Pittsburgh: Amid rising costs, Pennsylvania high schoolers are less certain about college than they used to be. Just 60% of the class of 2022 said they planned to go to college, compared to 72% in 2005, writes Emma Folts at our partner PublicSource.

“There are no big, splashy narratives that say, ‘Going to college is good.’ So it’s still really just the same narrative that’s been said forever, which is essentially, ‘College eventually pays more,’” Akil Bello, senior director of advocacy and advancement at FairTest, told Emma.

Keep in touch

Interested in reaching readers who care about higher education in communities across the country? Get in touch or request our media kit.

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