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.
-
Despite the coronavirus crisis, this year's most popular high school plays and musicals include The Addams Family, Mamma Mia! and Clue, according to Dramatics magazine.
-
Mary Poppins is out and Matilda is in, according to the new high school theater rankings from the Educational Theatre Association. The organization has been publishing its list since 1938.
-
More colleges are rolling back their optimistic proclamations of an in-person or hybrid fall. Plans are now more likely to include hefty virtual options, be mostly remote or even entirely online.
-
Many international students won't be able to make it to their U.S. college campuses for the fall semester because of travel restrictions and closed U.S. consulate offices.
-
College reopening plans all rely on one thing: students following the rules. Some experts worry that's too big of an ask.
-
A recent change has led to some colleges hesitating to help students affected by the economic downturn.
-
The SAT and ACT's reach beyond college admissions is pervasive, with many states requiring students take one or the other in order to graduate high school.
-
NPR spoke with a few student leaders about their graduations speeches and how a not-so-typical senior year inspired their words for the class of 2020.
-
Colleges might be able to reopen their campuses if they're able to frequently test their students. But can they get tests --- and with budgets already squeezed, will they be able to afford it?
-
Like so many sectors of the economy, higher education is taking a big hit from the pandemic. The U.S. Department of Education has so far distributed more than $10 billion in relief funds to colleges.