Illustration: Allie Sullberg for NBC News

Inflation is pushing up college tuition and fees while staff shortages are forcing wages and benefits higher. It’s a squeeze that comes at the worst possible time for colleges everywhere. 

Experts do cite one bright spot, however: The money pressures on higher education are beginning to force spending reforms long considered but not actually made.

Louisiana Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed has few peers who look like her. She is a Black woman in a field still dominated by white men—and she’s the only woman serving as a top state higher education official who has held such a role in more than one place.

In this interview, Hunter Reed discusses her ascent from a small town in Louisiana to the halls of power, plus her vision for the millions in additional state funding that she secured for Louisiana’s colleges and universities.

Two rough years of the coronavirus pandemic have exposed big cracks in Colorado’s health care system, with overworked and overwhelmed hospital workers leaving their jobs in droves. 

To help with staffing shortages, one of the state’s biggest systems is launching a multimillion-dollar effort with Guild Education to cover 100 percent of tuition for select clinical and degree programs.