Author: Nola Jones

Graduate education has never been inexpensive. Anyone who has signed loan documents for a professional degree or a master’s program is familiar with that specific feeling—the mixture of ambition and subdued fear that comes with taking out a five-figure loan just to keep the lights on while studying. The federal government basically said, “Borrow what you need,” for twenty years. July 1st marked the end of that era. The Graduate PLUS loan program is no longer available to new borrowers as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It was replaced by a more stringent, tiered system where…

For many years, it seemed as though a court decision or a change in policy would bring about another change to the federal student loan system. Programs for forgiveness came and went. Repayment restarts arrived after a delay. Borrowers learned to be cautious about their plans. However, as of July 1, the changes are official and genuine, no longer merely hypothetical. Approximately 7 million participants in the Biden-era income-driven repayment program, the SAVE plan, which was already on shaky legal ground, will suffer the most immediate disruption. Now that it is being phased out, the Department of Education will start…

Every September, bags of unwanted clothing, outdated kitchen appliances, and the odd jigsaw puzzle with three missing pieces fill charity stores all over the United Kingdom. School supplies are what you hardly ever see and what organizations discreetly claim they need the most. pens and notebooks. pencils with colors. A respectable school bag that won’t break by the middle of the term. It’s simple to believe that children in a nation with free public education have access to the necessary knowledge. However, that presumption is not entirely accurate. Over the past few years, families with school-age children have been using…

Terrion Arnold’s story could have taken a different turn before it even started. He arrived in Tuscaloosa in 2021 as a four-star recruit from John Paul II Catholic High School in Tallahassee, Florida. As a safety in high school, he was so good at basketball, running track, and covering receivers that Alabama wanted him before he had even played a single college snap. After that, he didn’t play a single game during his first year of redshirting. That kind of wait raises questions for many young players. Before momentum builds, it can be undermined. Apparently, Arnold made different use of…

The anticipation of playing a college football video game has an almost nostalgic quality. Fans lived without it for over ten years, and now, only two years after the relaunch, we’re witnessing people argue about unlock times on Reddit at midnight as if it were 2009 all over again. This week marks the release of EA Sports College Football 27, and for a certain kind of sports gaming enthusiast, this is a momentous occasion that is difficult to adequately convey to someone who did not grow up with the franchise. For MVP+ members, early access to EA College Football 27…

When the date of the back-to-school allowance payment is finally confirmed in early July, households experience a certain kind of relief. The week starting July 13, 2026, is that date for thousands of parents in Ireland. It couldn’t come at a better time, as school bags, uniforms, and shoes are all making a comeback to the shopping list. The Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance, or BSCFA as most social welfare professionals refer to it, is not a brand-new program. It has been quietly absorbing some of the financial burden associated with a new school term for many years.…

Madison Beer was raised in Jericho, New York, a sleepy Long Island suburb where Friday night football games and after-school activities continue to shape adolescent life. For a while, she was just another child going through Jericho Middle School’s hallways, participating in school plays, taking singing lessons after school, and daydreaming about something bigger. Then, when I was thirteen, everything was different. The internet reacted right away when Justin Bieber posted her rendition of Etta James’s “At Last” on YouTube in the summer of 2012. She became popular in a matter of days. She signed a record deal in a…

The fact that Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year federal sentence for sex trafficking, walked the same cobblestone quadrangles at Oxford that have produced prime ministers, Nobel laureates, and some of Britain’s brightest legal minds is almost purposefully ironic. In 1985, she graduated from that institution. It’s possible that nearly everyone in her immediate vicinity at the time anticipated extraordinary things. Maxwell started her formal education in Oxford at the Oxford High School for Girls, a demanding school with a long history of turning out accomplished women. However, her life changed when she was sent to the preparatory…

Most people have a familiar picture of childhood: riding school buses, doing homework at the kitchen table, and having lunch with friends in the cafeteria. The story has been told differently by Malachi Barton. He was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on March 10, 2007, and by 2014, at a time when most children are only learning multiplication tables, he was already trying out for television roles. His educational journey wasn’t a straight line, but judging by where he is now, it seems to have worked out perfectly. Barton was never exactly destined for a traditional upbringing, having grown up…

A school district that has been in operation continuously since 1835 has a subtle quality. Pittsburgh Public Schools did not come from a blueprint for contemporary education reform. It originated from Pennsylvania’s Free Public School Act of 1834, a politically contentious piece of legislation at the time. Over 20,000 students are served by the district in 54 schools located in Pittsburgh and the nearby borough of Mount Oliver, nearly 200 years later. Such longevity is not a coincidence. Additionally, friction is necessary for it to occur. Steel town, rust belt casualty, and tech hub hopeful are just a few of…