The AuguroSubscribe
Section

Education

Schools, learning, and the formation of minds

Lead Story

The Credential That Ate Itself

For half a century, American higher education sold a simple promise: go to college, get ahead. The promise was never quite true, but now it is visibly, measurably breaking down — and no one can agree on what replaces it.

Rachel ParkMarch 8, 2026
Education

The Teacher Shortage Is a Signal About American Priorities

States are paying teachers less in real terms than they did twenty years ago. The shortage is not a mystery. It is a predictable outcome of choices made with full knowledge of the consequences.

Sofia Reyes11 min
Education

What College Actually Teaches — And What It Doesn't

The American university is being asked to do more than it was designed for and less than its tuition justifies. What four years of higher education actually delivers — and to whom.

Sofia Reyes11 min
Education

What We Lost When We Lost Shop Class

America spent forty years dismantling vocational education in pursuit of the college-for-all ideal. The wreckage is everywhere: in the trades shortage, in the disconnected workforce, in the young people who needed a different kind of education and never got it.

Rachel Park10 min
Education

The Promise That Ate Itself

Higher education sold a generation on the idea that a degree was a guaranteed return on investment. The data has come in, and it is more complicated than the sales pitch.

Elena Vasquez13 min