The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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Are trade skills now more valuable than a college degree? Going to college used to be a defining milestone in the classic American Dream. But as costs rise and returns on investment shrink, many young people are rethinking what “success” looks like and redefining the traditional path altogether. A new study by Skillit finds that a growing majority of Americans now view trade skills as more valuable than a college diploma for landing a high-paying, stable job. This shift is driven by mounting fru...
Why parents aren’t reading to kids, and what it means for young students Jeana Wallace never enjoyed reading as a child. The books she read in school didn’t interest her and “constant deadlines made it even harder to connect with the stories,” she said. Reading was a chore, something to rush through for a test or school assignment. So when Wallace became a mother in 2019, she didn’t read to her son at home often — about once or twice a week, “maybe not even that,” said Wallace, who lives with...
Is interest in a 4-year college degree drying up? Not really. American colleges are under siege. The Trump administration has waged a legal and rhetorical battle against the country’s elite universities. Voters have grown increasingly skeptical of higher education. Some high school students are questioning the value of a college diploma. In turn, there’s been a veritable firehose of news stories about a generational pivot away from college due to some combination of ruinous costs, clo...
Staying home to raise the family? Here’s what the working spouse needs to earn While the cost of raising a young child can now reach over $40,000 in pre-tax income annually, depending on where you live, many families find ways to mitigate some of the larger costs associated with parenthood. This often includes considerations about who will work in the household and whether young children will require paid daycare services while their parents are occupied. With tradeoffs abound, many parents m...
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (DEC 23, 2025) – Dr. Helen Lien appreciates the vital work of the dedicated professionals in the College of Nursing at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), and the feeling is mutual. Lien, the college's senior development officer, received the 2025 Lamplighter Award from the Alabama League for Nursing (ALN) after being nominated by Dr. Karen Frith, dean of the college. UAH is a part of The University of Alabama System. "It is a tremendous honor to be recognized by t...
‘Failing our kids’: Philadelphia’s struggle highlights how young learners nationwide miss out on legally mandated support services When Kimberly Halevy’s son Joshua was three, she started hearing from his preschool that he was acting out. He rarely participated in circle time and had trouble playing with other kids. Halevy’s friend had recently opened the preschool, and she liked that someone she knew took care of her son. But eventually, the preschool said it would only allow him back if h...
Many young adults are barely literate despite earning a high school diploma One in 4 young adults across the U.S. is functionally illiterate — yet more than half earned high school diplomas, according to recently released data analyzed by The 74. The number of 16-to-24-year-olds reading at the lowest literacy levels increased from 16% in 2017 to 25% in 2023, according to data released in December from the National Center for Education Statistics in partnership with the Program for the I...
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (DEC. 8, 2025) – Sarah Dalessi, a fifth-year student in the College of Science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, is the lead author of a paper on arXiv detailing the discovery of the fastest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever recorded. GRB 230307A is a gamma-ray burst in the ultrarelativistic category, meaning the velocity of the GRB's jet, a focused beam of high-energy particles and photons, came within 99.99998 percent of t...
1 European countries with great study options for US students in 2026 Studying abroad in Europe can be one of the most exciting choices you make as a student. It is a chance to experience new cities, meet people from around the world, and challenge yourself academically and personally. Europe offers a wide range of opportunities, from historic universities and cutting-edge research programs to vibrant student life and cultural adventures. Each country brings something different to the table....
Schools that are good at teaching math are also good in reading — and vice versa Many people prefer restaurants that specialize and perfect a certain type of cuisine — they don’t want their barbecue restaurant to offer sushi, and see extensive menus as a worrisome sign of mediocrity. On the other hand, they may not want a hotel that excels in only one area — they want every hotel they stay at to have clean sheets and towels, hot water and a quiet environment. What about schools? Are they more li...
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (DEC. 16, 2025) – Scientists search for "decaying" dark matter (DDM) because it offers unique signatures like specific X-ray or gamma-ray lines or neutrino signals not seen in normal matter, potentially revealing dark matter's particle nature, mass and interactions, information that could illuminate the universe's structure. DDM is a theoretical model where dark matter particles aren't perfectly stable, but slowly decay over vast cosmic timescales into lighter dark matter p...
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (DEC. 19, 2025) – The Center for Cybersecurity Research and Education (CCRE) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, has announced the availability of cybersecurity scholarships through the CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service (SFS) program and Department of Defense (DOD) Cyber Service Academy (CSA). The scholarships are open for application for the Fall 2026 semester. Any cybersecurity-related degree is eligible. The C...
Students want schools to incorporate AI in learning, but express some fears As more students utilize artificial intelligence inside and outside the classroom, they are outpacing schools in the adoption of generative AI tools for learning, according to a new survey by Project Tomorrow, a national nonprofit that researches technology and innovations in education. The report, published Oct. 23, was paired with an online panel discussion featuring Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing...
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NOV. 25, 2025) – Three CanSat teams at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, placed first, second and sixth nationally in the 2025 International CanSat competition held in Monterey and Staunton, Va. UAH teams BlueStreak, Cosmos and Rotorstorm also placed sixth, eighth and fourteenth, respectively, in the international rankings for the annual event that showcases student-built CanSats, a type of miniature satellite designed t...
Goblins AI math tutoring app clones your teacher’s looks and voice Math students can soon call upon an avatar of their classroom teacher — a round-faced cartoon created by artificial intelligence to capture their likeness, voice, vocabulary and cadence — to respond directly to their questions in real time. A new application designed to scale up extra help, Goblins was launched in the winter of 2024. Since then, a disembodied voice has been assessing students’ work in fifth- through 12th-gr...
America’s special education crisis: How teacher shortages threaten our most vulnerable students When news dies down regarding teacher shortages, they almost always start up again after only a short reprieve. This constant state of “one step forward, two steps back” has an even more worrying underlying issue: a shortage of special education teachers. These critical professionals assist students with learning, physical, emotional, or developmental disabilities, helping to foster their succe...
‘Absolutely devastating’: Rural schools say $100K visa fee could make it hard to hire teachers The Kuspuk School District owns two small planes and employs a pilot to stay connected with schools spread across 12,000 square miles along the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska. And to keep those schools staffed, the remote school district works with its own immigration attorney, Chalkbeat reports. Some 60% of Kuspuk’s certified teachers come from the Philippines. That includes all of the speci...
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NOV. 20, 2025) – Dr. Bramwell Brizendine, an assistant professor of computer science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, has been selected to receive the Young Faculty Award (YFA), an award of $500,000, from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The funding will support the researcher's work on Binary Emulation and Analysis Simulation Technology (BEAST), a cutting-edge system that aims to create a more powerful framework for emulating and analyzing m...
HUNTSVILLE, AL. (OCTOBER 30, 2025) – A new study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) by researchers from The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, calls for invalidating the world record hottest temperature of 134 degrees F recorded in Death Valley, Calif., on July 10, 1913. UAH Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Scientist Dr. Roy Spencer and ESSC Director and Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John R. Christy e...
Trump gave the Labor Department more control over career-technical education. Will students benefit? Career and technical education is a lot more than learning to weld or draw blood. It can expose kids to jobs they didn’t even know existed and help them figure out what they want to do with their lives. It can also teach students concrete skills they can use on the job right after they graduate high school. But high school programs haven’t always lined up well with what employers are looking for...
How dads’ stress and mental health can influence their children’s development The transition to parenthood can be an anxious time for expectant moms and dads. A recent study shows that stress on fathers before and after the birth of a baby could affect their children’s development. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics in June, involved a meta-analysis of 84 studies and found that paternal mental distress around the time of birth was assoc...
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NOV 10, 2025) – The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), part of The University of Alabama System, has been awarded a $2.4M grant for the National Science Foundation (NSF) Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Graduate Fellowship Program (EGFP). Through this program, UAH will fund up to 15 doctoral fellowships across four NSF Directorates, including Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Engineering, Geosciences, and Computer and Information S...
Nurses are in high demand. Why can’t nursing schools keep up? Oscar Mateo dreamed of being an artist, but after he got leukemia when he was 20, his life plans abruptly changed. The compassionate nursing care he received while hospitalized touched him so much that he decided he wanted to provide the same for others. That impulse led him to the registered nursing program at Mt. San Antonio College in the Los Angeles County suburb of Walnut. But getting there wasn’t easy, as he had to battle com...
Doak Walker Plaza and Armstrong Commons at Southern Methodist University, a private research university. Ken Wolter // Shutterstock Most conservative colleges in America Although colleges are generally expected to remain neutral on political issues, nearly half of Americans believe that higher education is biased toward liberal ideals. In a September 2025 poll conducted by Vanderbilt University, 43% of survey respondents agreed with the statement that colleges tend to favor left-leaning...
Graduates in caps and gown at commencement. Nirat.pix // Shutterstock Colleges with the highest-earning graduates for 25 popular degrees Benjamin Franklin once said, "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest," though most Americans would now disagree when it comes to higher education. Fewer than 1 in 4 (22%) of adults in the United States think college is worth its price, even if the person has to take out loans, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. About 43 million...
