Community colleges, tribal colleges, and minority-serving institutions all received multimillion-dollar gifts from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott in 2020 and 2021.

Scott's gifts placed a spotlight on colleges that don’t always get the recognition they deserve. In this interview, school leaders share how they are putting the money to use.

It’s a tough time to be a teacher. But leaders of college education programs are fighting fatalism by trying new strategies for recruiting and training America’s next batch of teachers. 

Several strategies focus on an acute pain point: the mismatch between the high cost to earn a degree in teaching and the low pay the profession offers. But the most promising efforts have a common ingredient: close ties between colleges and local K-12 school districts.

College students almost certainly lost ground academically during the pandemic. But how much? And what should colleges be doing to help students recover from the COVID-19 learning disruption?

This episode of The Key explores how colleges are adapting their practices and policies in areas such as placement, instruction, grading, and assessment to help students get up to speed.