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.
-
With desperate pleas and social contracts failing to curb college parties, schools have turned to punitive consequences. But are the students the ones to blame? -
Millions of college students are starting the fall semester online — that's meant some students are scrambling to get the technology they need to take the classes.
-
Students across the U.S. are continuing to move into college dorms. At the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill that's happening in reverse. Students are moving out following COVID-19 outbreaks.
-
Across the country, hundreds of thousands of college students are making their way to campus to begin the fall semester.
-
One in 10 U.S. college students doesn't have access to a laptop. The pandemic is pushing colleges to change that.
-
The Justice Department said its two-year investigation found that race is "the determinative factor in hundreds of admissions decisions each year." Yale categorically denies the allegation.
-
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.
