Member-only story
Higher Ed Journalism Is a Dumpster Fire
Journalists love to spin high ed news into bad news. Because of this, higher ed reporting is rarely straightforward and balanced. Instead, it’s often written in a way that’s misleading, or it’s artfully (and intentionally) framed to be (BOO!) scary.
You’d think The Hechinger Report[1] — which “uses research, data and stories from classrooms and campuses to show the public how education can be improved and why it matters” — would be above this. The way I see it, they’re not. Recently, The Hechinger Report published this “story”:
Tracking College closures: More colleges are shutting down as enrollment drops
The title screams double doom for higher education:
- “more colleges are shutting down”
- “as enrollment drops.”
But how true is this?
NOT the Whole Story (Just the Bad Story)
You can pretty much get to the truth (or what’s missing from the truth) by looking at the article’s first three paragraphs:
Paragraph #1
College enrollment has been declining for more than a decade,[2] and that means that many institutions are struggling to pay their bills. A growing number of them are making the difficult decision to close.
“Declining for more than a decade …. “ Uh-oh!!! Things sound dire for higher education. But wait!!! What about this recent data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) (reported October 23rd, 2024):
Enrollment in undergraduate programs is up 3% in early reporting this fall compared to similar early data from fall 2023, indicating a second straight year of undergraduate enrollment growth,[3] according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s latest report. [emphasis added]
“Declining for more than a decade” becomes very misleading when you omit relevant/contrary data, i.e., there’s been “a second straight year of undergraduate enrollment growth.”
Paragraph #2
In the first nine months of 2024, 28 degree-granting institutions closed, compared with 15 in all of 2023, according to an analysis of federal data provided to The Hechinger Report by the State…
