Maddie Aiken
Maddie Aiken covers higher education for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, with a focus on how financial decisions, enrollment trends and campus planning shape universities and their students.
Before her current role, she covered education and other community-related topics for the Tribune-Review and The Daily Times in Salisbury, Md.
Higher education finance, fundraising and tuition
Her coverage of university finance centers on major fundraising campaigns and how they redefine institutional priorities and resources.
In a story on Carnegie Mellon’s historic $2.5 billion campaign, she details how the drive supports new campus buildings, scholarships, endowed professorships and research initiatives.
In a separate piece on Pitt’s $3 billion “Proving Possible” campaign, she breaks down key goals such as student financial support, faculty support, community partnerships and the research enterprise.
She reports on tuition increases at Pennsylvania’s state universities in the context of stalled state budget negotiations, framing price changes as part of a broader debate over public funding and affordability.
In coverage of the state-owned university system, she uses interviews with the system chancellor to explain how demographic declines in college-age residents are forcing a “hard look” at low-enrollment programs and potential cuts to dozens of offerings across multiple campuses.
Campus growth, housing and the physical footprint
Another strand of her beat follows how campuses expand, repurpose space and manage housing pressure for growing or shifting student populations.
In reporting on Pitt’s campus master plan, she outlines proposals for a new residence tower, conversions of existing buildings into student housing, and added green space meant to increase accessibility and campus cohesion.
She covers the strain on student housing through stories about freshmen placed in an off-campus hotel, capturing frustrations over distance from campus, room conditions and the sense of being separated from the core university experience.
Her piece on Carnegie Mellon’s acquisition of Chatham University’s Eastside location examines how the transaction restructures space for both institutions, including lease-back arrangements that allow Chatham to retain part of the site while CMU expands its footprint.
In a feature on the Cathedral of Learning’s centennial, she ties the building’s history and symbolism to current fundraising and campus initiatives, showing how a landmark structure remains central to Pitt’s identity and future plans.
Policy shifts, demographics and student experience
Her policy-focused work explains how changing laws, demographic shifts and cultural trends filter down to students and institutions.
In a story on accelerated three-year bachelor’s degrees, she describes how universities such as Youngstown State design 90-credit programs and how Ohio legislators have required public universities to offer at least one such degree in an in-demand field by a set deadline.
Her reporting on Carnegie Mellon’s enrollment after the end of affirmative action tracks changes in the racial makeup of incoming classes, noting increases among Asian students and declines among other groups as the university adapts to the new legal landscape.
She explores generational change through a feature on falling alcohol use among Gen Z, using national polling data and interviews to describe new norms in campus social life and the rise of abstention among young adults.
In coverage of CCAC’s 60th anniversary, she connects growing interest in community colleges with workforce demands and the role of two-year institutions in opening access to higher education.
She has also written about campus responses to the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, focusing on safety, free speech and how local colleges relate to national political movements and organizations.
Profiles and leadership within universities
Her beat includes regular profiles that put institutional leadership and individual stories at the center of broader trends in higher education.
In an interview-based piece with Duquesne University’s new president, she uses questions about enrollment, athletics and campus growth to show how he sees the university’s “position of strength” and its strategic direction ahead of the fall semester.
In a feature on a graduating Pitt student who battled liver cancer while juggling coursework and a campus leadership role, she combines medical details, academic pressures and extracurricular commitments to highlight resilience within the student body.
In an obituary for Father Drew Morgan, she situates his pastoral work and scholarly achievements, including advanced degrees and a dissertation on Newman’s writings on conscience, within the context of Catholic higher education and the canonization of Newman.
Across these strands, her reporting stays fixed on higher education, pairing institutional analysis with human-centered storytelling and data-driven context.
4 more education journalists.
Abdul Latif Jameel
Abdul Latif Jameel publishes long-form, research-led pieces on how emerging technologies and scientific advances reshape education, industry, and society. He writes for the Abdul Latif Jameel masthead at the intersection of learning, innovation, and applied science, with a focus on technology, skills, and the future of learning. He explains complex fields such as quantum sensing in clear, accessible terms, breaking down frontier science and tying it to real-world applications. His coverage links breakthroughs in sensing, data, and automation to training, curriculum, and lifelong learning. He treats education as an applied system connected to industry, policy, infrastructure, and human development. He reports in an analytical, explanatory style, using research, pilots, and large-scale initiatives to examine how technologies are implemented, evaluated, and scaled in learning and training environments.
Abril Preciado
Abril Preciado is an Emmy award-winning bilingual television journalist at FOX6 News Milwaukee who focuses on education, school crises and policy decisions affecting students, families and staff. She follows school communities over months, from emergency response through investigations, relocation plans and the first day back in class. Her reporting on the Lincoln Avenue School fire covers displacement, safety changes, rebuilding and the move to temporary space. She also uses public records to examine local officials, test official claims and connect government conduct to public trust. Before joining FOX6, she reported for Univision in Sacramento, covering the Farm Workers March, wildfires, politics and the Latino community, and contributed border reporting for a national radio network. She centers families, explains complex decisions clearly and focuses on the human effects of policy.
Adria Iraheta
Adria Iraheta is a community-focused reporter at Denver7, distinct for centering students, families and residents in every story about schools, neighborhoods and public services. She covers how decisions by school districts, local agencies and public institutions land in daily life, with a particular focus on Aurora and Arapahoe County. Her beat sits at the intersection of education, community issues, public services, safety, infrastructure, health and climate, from job cuts in a school district to a new transit safety app, DMV outages, street changes and record heat waves. With a decade of local television reporting experience, she reports on the ground in specific local scenes, using plain language, direct questions to officials and clear explanations to show how policies, programs and changes affect the people who live, study and work in Colorado communities.
Alan J. Borsuk
Alan J. Borsuk stands out for connecting what happens in schools to the policy and political decisions behind them. He writes in-depth K-12 education analysis for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and serves as a senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette University Law School. His work focuses on Milwaukee Public Schools, school choice, literacy, teacher pipelines, and school accountability. He uses long-range perspective, detailed reporting, and structured analysis to explain how reforms unfold, why they stall, and what they mean for students and leaders. He has also written on vouchers, Teach for America, discipline, and teacher evaluation, drawing on decades as a reporter and editor on education and public policy.