Alia Wong
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Shutterstock / The Atlantic The Most Memorable Family and Education Interviews of the Year
Our reporters reflect on the words and ideas that resonated with them in 2019.
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Nam Y. Huh / AP Images When Schools Try to Tweak Winter Break, Families Fight Back
Controversies over minor changes show how invested parents are in the end-of-year school calendar.
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Solomon Enos How to Save a Dying Language
The Hawaiian language nearly went extinct. Now it’s being taught in dozens of immersion schools.
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Courtesy of Lasell University What’s the Difference Between a College and a University?
There’s no such thing as a dumb question.
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oksana.perkins / Shutterstock The College Campuses That Moonlight as Wedding Venues
Some schools rent out their facilities, bringing in extra revenue during a time of widespread budgetary woes.
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ShutterRunner.com (Matty Wolin) / Getty Six-Figure Price Tags Are Coming to Colleges
The annual cost of attending several selective universities is slated to reach $100,000 within a few years.
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Simon Montag / The Atlantic Why Is Middle School So Hard for So Many People?
It doesn’t have to be this way.
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College Students Just Want Normal Libraries
Schools have been on a mission to reinvent campus libraries—even though students just want the basics.
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Courtesy of Jodi Miller / Kenyon College The Cat With a Campus Wrapped Around His Paw
For the past two years, Moxie has been invading classrooms and riding around Kenyon College atop students’ backpacks.
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Brian Ray / AP How College Changes the Parent-Child Relationship
The distance can actually strengthen the bond.
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Elise Amendola / AP Images Back-to-School Night Is Hard for Single Parents
Meant to be welcoming, such events can make solo parents feel isolated.
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Sean De Burca / Corbis / Getty The Most Popular Names of This Year’s College Freshmen
A university’s roster of new students is a time capsule of popular baby names from 18 years earlier, with telling variations reflecting the school’s particularities.
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Rebecca Cook / Reuters Betsy DeVos’s Extraordinary Crackdown on Michigan State
The Education Department’s record-high fine against MSU underscores the extent to which the university botched its handling of various sexual-abuse scandals.
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David Franklin / Getty Colleges Face Growing International Student-Visa Issues
Amid tightening immigration restrictions, higher-education institutions find themselves swamped with paperwork.
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James P. Blair / Corbis / Getty Family Reunions: Not Just for Grandparents
At a time when Americans are yearning for closeness, such gatherings are popular across generations.
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Gordon Parks/ Library of Congress / Getty How Twin XL Beds Took Over College Campuses
The slightly longer mattress is a compromise between schools’ economic needs and students’ physical ones.
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Lee Balterman / The Life Picture Collection / ... Colleges Would Rather Freshmen Not Choose Their Roommates
Though many new students want to choose for themselves, schools prefer to use dorms as a way to introduce young adults to new perspectives.
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Richard Vogel / AP When ‘Back to School’ Means Back to Mass-Shooting Fears
High-profile massacres have created ambient, worsening anxiety about gun violence on K–12 campuses.
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Dan Whitcomb / Reuters The Financial Calamity That Is the Teaching Profession
Teachers are suing the government over debt relief that never came—but their financial problems go much deeper than student loans.
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Courtesy of Yankton College The College That Became a Prison
Yankton College no longer exists. But it’s not fully dead either.
