As Congress moves forward on expanding the Pell Grant to short-term certificates, there’s an important caveat: Online education programs will be excluded.

Excluding online programs won’t keep low-quality programs out—but it will restrict access for students who need flexibility, writes James Dean Ward of Ithaka S+R in this commentary. Instead of blanket exclusions, Ward is pushing for more accurate measures of quality.

The people who build and fund edtech tools occupy very different professional worlds than the educators who use those tools. And the two worlds can sometimes collide.

On this podcast, a venture capitalist who invests in edtech companies goes one-on-one with a professor who is critical of the edtech industry. The topic: What role should artificial intelligence play in education?

Photo: Peter Prato for The New York Times

A reasonably priced education at a world-class public university. A single-family house in a neighborhood that is clean and peaceful. For generations, these have been pillars of the California dream.

Now an epic clash between the two ideals is forcing state lawmakers to confront the limits of California’s promise, as growth collides with the state’s ability to sustainably house and educate its 40 million people.