The standards behind the coverage.

Primary documents over everything else. When a story or a figure depends on a number, the number links to its source and shows the date we looked at it.

• Prefer primary sources — NCES, IPEDS, Federal Student Aid, the Federal Register, and the Code of Federal Regulations — over press releases, marketing materials, or secondary reporting.
• On data pages, every chart carries its source, its access date, and a plain-language methodology note.
• Citations are checked, not copied. The URL, publisher, and the specific release a figure comes from are all verified before publication.
• Where a claim depends on an estimate or a projection, we say so in the body of the piece.

Two people between a claim and publication, on the claims that matter most.

• A first editor signs off on sourcing, structure, and language. A second reviewer — named on the piece, where present — independently rechecks every figure and citation against its source.
• A fact-check badge only appears once that second pass is complete. In sample content, that badge is suppressed.
• Data on our data pages carries an explicit verified flag; until it is flipped, the page says so — 'sample data — verify before publication.'

We correct errors openly and without delay. How a correction appears is itself part of the standard.

• Errors that change a conclusion are corrected immediately and labeled at the top of the piece; minor fixes are logged in a corrections note at the bottom.
• Nothing is silently rewritten. Substantive changes to published figures are dated and explained.
• To flag a problem, use the form on the contact page, or write to us with the URL of the piece and what you believe is wrong.

We are an independent editorial publication. No institution, agency, or operator on the higher-education side of the market funds, commissions, or gets to approve what we publish.

• We accept no advertising from institutions, colleges, or the vendors that sell to them.
• The newsletter, if and when it ships, is free to read and never carries institutional sponsorship.
• Institutional partnerships, if they ever happen, are disclosed up front — and the disclosure runs alongside the work, not instead of it.
• No institution has the right to see, approve, or veto any story before it publishes.

Higher-ed data moves slowly, but it moves. Cost figures, deadlines, and policy details all have a shelf life.

• Guides carry a last-reviewed date and, for time-sensitive material, a pinned review note.
• Data pages show the access date for every source on the page — you can always see how old the number is.
• Policy pages are reviewed when a rule changes; the change is noted with a date, not buried in the body text.

We use AI-assisted tools. We don't use them in ways that hide who did the work, or that cut out the verification that makes the work trustworthy.

• AI tools may support drafting, research assistance, and proofreading. No piece is generated end-to-end without human editorial authorship.
• AI output is never a source. A figure only appears with a link to a primary source and a date we accessed it — the same standard, no exceptions.
• AI assistance is disclosed where it shaped the piece materially, not just where it touched the draft.
• The standard that governs the result is the one that governs everything else on this page: every claim is checkable.