Elissa Nadworny
Elissa Nadworny reports on all things college for NPR, following big stories like unprecedented enrollment declines, college affordability, the student debt crisis and workforce training. During the 2020-2021 academic year, she traveled to dozens of campuses to document what it was like to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic. Her work has won several awards including a 2020 Gracie Award for a story about student parents in college, a 2018 James Beard Award for a story about the Chinese-American population in the Mississippi Delta and a 2017 Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in innovation.
Nadworny uses multiplatform storytelling – incorporating radio, print, comics, photojournalism, and video — to put students at the center of her coverage. Some favorite story adventures include crawling in the sewers below campus to test wastewater for the coronavirus, yearly deep-dives into the most popular high school plays and musicals and an epic search for the history behind her classroom skeleton.
Before joining NPR in 2014, Nadworny worked at Bloomberg News, reporting from the White House. A recipient of the McCormick National Security Journalism Scholarship, she spent four months reporting on U.S. international food aid for USA Today, traveling to Jordan to talk with Syrian refugees about food programs there.
Originally from Erie, Pa., Nadworny has a bachelor's degree in documentary film from Skidmore College and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
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President Biden extended relief for federal student loan borrowers for an additional 90 days because borrowers are "still coping with the impacts of the pandemic." Payments now resume May 1. -
President Biden's infrastructure package includes $65 billion for improving broadband. That money could make a big difference for rural college students, who are especially disconnected. -
Students across the country are headed back to campus for fall classes. With the delta variant raging, there are questions around how colleges can pull this semester off.
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Indiana University is among the more that 500 colleges in the U.S. requiring that students receive the COVID-19 vaccine for fall semester. But a new lawsuit is challenging the university's mandate.
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The senators are introducing a bill that would make pandemic-related food benefits for college students permanent and create grants for colleges to address hunger. -
Most of the class of 2020 experienced canceled or online-only graduation ceremonies, but this year many colleges are finding creative ways to celebrate their graduates in person. -
More campuses are expected to add the requirement, with potential legal challenges ahead. One key point: Requiring vaccines for infectious diseases is nothing new for many residential colleges.
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Colleges are leaning heavily on campus custodians. "You may not have seen us before the pandemic, but I guarantee you'll see us now," says Tanya Hughes, a campus building services head in Florida. -
A majority of U.S. colleges have canceled spring break, in an attempt to curb student travel. But the rise of online classes means students can now attend college from anywhere, including beachside. -
We've talked with hundreds of people since the pandemic shut down schools and colleges a year ago. We checked back back in with three of them about how their lives have changed.
