“Unbiased”: A Fake Word in Higher Education News

As an education publication, this is how The Hechinger Report describes itself:

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers

Sometimes, I cite The Hechinger Report for its “reporting,” but it’s difficult for me to call their reporting “unbiased.” Maybe a long time ago, but not today. Because when it comes to higher education, The Hechinger Report continues to spin a negative (and often misleading) story.

Some Data Is Best Left Unsaid

The Hechinger Report’s latest concoction is Jon Marcus’ article “A trend colleges might not want applicants to notice: It’s becoming easier to get in.”[1] It doesn’t deserve a full read because right off the bat, it tries to to pull the wool over your eyes:

As enrollment in colleges and universities continues to decline — down by more than 2 million students, or 10 percent, in the 10 years ending 2022 — they’re not only casting wider nets.

Continues to decline? There appears to be a hole–a big one–in this reporting. Why stop at 2022? Why not 2023 and 2024? The answer: because reporting the past two years would reveal a back-to-back increase in college enrollment. As reported by the National Student Clearinghouse:[2]

• Undergraduate enrollment [in fall 2023] increased for the first time since the pandemic began, rising by 2.1 percent compared to 2022 and exceeding 2021 enrollment by 1.2 percent.
• Undergraduate enrollment grew 2.5 percent (+359,000) in spring 2024, marking the second consecutive semester of enrollment growth following years of decline during the pandemic.
• Preliminary data for fall 2024 shows undergraduate enrollment increasing 3 percent. All sectors are seeing growth in the number of undergraduates this fall.

So “continues to decline” can be true only if you omit 2023 and 2024 from the story. That doesn’t look like “unbiased reporting”; it looks like an omission meant to bolster a negative story.