By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.
Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Collaboration

Experience, exposure, and connections are all benefits of an undergraduate internship. They can help undergraduate college students get a head start in their desired career fields. Missouri State University has launched a new "internship on steroids" program specifically for graduate students to deepen all of the benefits an earn-and-learn training program can offer to a whole different group of learners.

"In your typical internship, about the time that students find where the bathroom is, it's over," says Julie Masterson, Ph.D., associate provost and dean of Missouri State's Graduate College.

"In this case, not only does the employer have a chance to learn about the student, the student has a chance to reflect on their experiences. The employer has the time, energy, and attention to really engage with some serious mentoring,"

While most internships can last about 10 weeks, or the duration of a semester, the new Community Graduate Assistantships provides the opportunity for local companies to hire Missouri State graduate students for up to two years.

A Tailored Approach to Workplace Learning

The earn-and-learn opportunity is more tailored than most internships, paid or unpaid. The company and the school work together to develop a job description that directly aligns with a student's learning goals and the company's desired outcomes.

Bass Pro Shops was one of the first companies to partner with the university. Its graduate assistant (GA) developed and implemented a project to get customer feedback on popular products. Another of the program's biggest advocates, according to Masterson, is a small, four-person architectural firm that needed digital marketing and social media help.

"Before they were willing to invest a lot of money in creating a new position, they wanted to test the waters. They hired a GA to come in and before long she's teaching them about all these things," Masterson says.

"She's having to learn architecture words and they're both learning a whole other vocabulary. But I think this is a really, really important component. This is applicable all the way from a very small firm to a large conglomerate."

'Learning everything that we're throwing at her'

Springfield-based CNH Reman hired computer science graduate student Asra Kulsum from the MSU assistantship program.

Kulsum is working as an implementation coordinator for the remanufactured parts company. Just as the job title signals, she helps assist in the implementation of projects and information systems.

The company's director of information technology, Kelly Robertson, says she spent a lot of time on the job title and building the foundation for the role.

"I want to make sure that we are taking [her education] to the next step, giving her some experience, such as an understanding of the business acumen. We go over our financials every week at this organization. We go through the income statement and what impacts what, and how that flows."

Robertson adds, "Anytime Julie [Masterson] asks us to speak, we jump and speak. Asra mentioned she's done a lot of speaking. She was a part of our summer internship program, so she had to also present there.

"She's working with our senior developer and has that mentorship there, as well. A lot of team interaction. We do a lot of collaborations. So, she's getting a lot of interaction that she'll be able to use.

"It's not that Asra was lacking confidence when she came, but our hope is that she has even more confidence when she leaves by learning everything that we're throwing at her."

Kulsum studied computer science as an undergraduate in India and has some work experience. But through her graduate program and the assistantship, she says she is receiving mentorship and learning about technologies that her fellow classmates haven't experienced.

"This is the only opportunity that differentiates me from other students. And to me personally, it has a lot of advantages because every day I get to learn something new and I'm building valuable and professional connections," Kulsum says.

"They involve me in all sorts of meetings and internship activities, giving me the complete exposure and tons of benefits. And I also get a chance to speak up in public, especially about being a graduate assistant.

"If I had this opportunity back in college, I probably wouldn't have gained as much as knowledge and real- world exposure as I'm gaining here."

As part of her assistantship, Kulsum participates in job candidate interviews. She interacts regularly with stakeholders across and up within the hierarchy of the organization, developing business communication skills and learning the differences between speaking with a manager as opposed to a director or a general manager.

"Success for me is knowing that we have trained Asra as we would anyone else within our department. And seeing her being able to complete tasks and tickets on her own without guidance, having that foundational understanding and progressing with the projects that she's working on. We've already seen what I would consider success," Robertson says.

Aiming to Expand the Graduate Assistantship Program

The "community" part of the graduate assistantship program is intentional, Masterson says. It's critical and acknowledges the partnership with the school and the student. She wants the school to develop the reputation for being the go-to institution for advanced workforce development.

"Part of our success would be when our community, our region, and the companies in our region felt like MSU was a really important partner with them. That we were sensitive to what they needed, that we were providing not only things like this program, but other kinds of just-in-time training or additional education opportunities for employers. We want the region, the community, to view us as a valuable asset," she says.

Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the graduate college. In turn the university pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees, and salary. It's a way the program can be held accountable that the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. It also enables students like Kulsum, who is an F1 visa holder, to be eligible for these opportunities.

Kulsum is on track to graduate with her master's degree in December and would like to stay in the U.S. for work. CNH Reman doesn't sponsor visas, so she won't be able to remain at the company when her assistantship is complete. But that is not stopping Robertson from being a fierce mentor and advocate for Kulsum.

"She will get the best glowing recommendation from myself and Jack, her primary mentor," Robertson says. "I can tell you I'm already networking in our area to say, 'I've got a really good one. She's going to be a rockstar. She already is.' And I'm already trying to lay that foundation to try and keep her in the area."

Currently five companies offer community graduate assistantships and Masterson says she would like to see that number increase to double digits before the end of the year. Her goal is to have at least 10% of total graduate assistantships funded through this program, and a wide distribution of these opportunities across all the graduate programs.

"I don't think enough people understand," Robertson says of the program's possibilities. "The sky is the limit."


Victoria Lim wrote this article for WorkingNation.


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Journalism and the way people consume news is changing, and Arizona State University will soon launch an initiative it claims will "build a stronger, more trusted and financially stable news ecosystem."

The Knight Center for the Future of News will be housed within the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, set to open July 1. The school's dean, Battinto Batts, said the Knight Center will be made up of three labs - to address declining public trust in news, explore new revenue models for news organizations, and experiment with new forms of storytelling.

Batts said an information hub will gather insights and promote best practices across the industry.

"So, we have all those things going on at the same time," he said, "and so the Knight Center for the Future of News looks to embrace those disruptions and say, 'OK, how do we embrace those disruptions that are going on and then find a path forward?' We're seeking to be engineers."

He said the Knight Center will bring together educators, researchers, students, working journalists and newsrooms.

Polling shows Americans continue to express record low levels of confidence in the media, with only one-third saying they have confidence that news is being reported fairly and accurately.

Batt said journalists who have remained committed to gathering, writing, editing and disseminating news believe in the cause and know how important it is to a healthy democracy.

"The importance of media, and news and journalism to be able to inform people, to give them the information that they need to make healthy, important decisions that impact their daily lives - that's going to exist whether or not the business model changes or not and so, it has evolved," he said.

Batt added the threat posed by information isn't a new concept - but it's been intensified because of new technologies. And he encouraged current and future journalists to focus on the vital mission of keeping audiences informed.


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More than 70,000 Marylanders are student parents, raising kids while attending college full or part-time and proposed cuts in this year's big budget bill in Congress could make it more difficult for them to earn their degrees.

House Republicans' version of the bill would require taking 15 credit-hours instead of 12 to receive a full Pell Grant. For some, it would mean nearly $1,500 less on a grant which already does not cover the cost of college.

Ewaoluwa Obatuase, policy analyst at the think tank New America, said it is not the only potential change making it tougher for student parents.

"They have to juggle work. They have to juggle school and parenting," Obatuase pointed out. "This reconciliation bill will strip the critical support they need to succeed in college. It reduces funding for SNAP. It reduces funding for Medicaid, and it complicates the financial aid system."

Republican lawmakers have argued increasing the bar for Pell Grant eligibility is necessary to keep the program funded. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Pell Grant program faces a $2.7 billion funding shortfall.

The cuts would also reduce financial aid options for 1 million parents who are graduate students, by decreasing affordable loan repayment options, like Grad and Parent Plus loans. Obatuase acknowledged the Senate is still working on its version of the tax-cut and spending bill but if the steep cuts in the House version survive, it cannot help but affect student parents.

"It makes it harder to afford college. It makes it harder to repay loans, and it makes it harder to build a better life in this country, all while giving tax cuts to the wealthy millionaires and billionaires of this country," Obatuase stressed. "This bill literally does not do anything to help our student parents. It harms them."

Research shows attaining a college degree is one of the biggest contributors to economic mobility. According to the Association of Public-Land Grant Universities, people who earn a bachelor's degree make more than $1.2 million more income over their lifetime than those who do not.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.


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By Michael Vasquez for The Hechinger Report.
Broadcast version by Trimmel Gomes for Florida News Connection reporting for The Hechinger Report-Public News Service Collaboration

Oklahoma wants some of its less-expensive universities to cut travel and operational costs, consolidate departments and reduce energy use — all in the name of saving money.

Already, earning a degree at one of these regional institutions is relatively inexpensive for students, costing in total as much as $15,000 less per year than bigger state universities in Oklahoma. And the schools, including Southeastern Oklahoma State University and the University of Central Oklahoma, graduate more teachers and nurses than those research institutions. Those graduates can fill critically needed roles for the state.

Still, state policymakers think there are more efficiencies to be found.

Higher education is one of the specific areas targeted by a new state-run agency with a familiar name, with the goal of “protecting our Oklahoma way of life,” Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt said in the first DOGE-OK report this spring. The Oklahoma Division of Government Efficiency, created around the same time as the federal entity with a similar title, counts among its accomplishments so far shifting to automated lawn mowers to cut grass at the state capital, changing to energy-efficient LED lighting and cutting down on state government cell phone bills. The Oklahoma governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment about this effort.

Oklahoma is one of about a dozen states that has considered an approach similar to the federal DOGE, though some state attempts were launched before the Trump administration’s. The federal Department of Government Efficiency, established the day Trump took office on Jan. 20, has commanded deep cuts to federal spending and the federal workforce, with limited justification.

As academia becomes a piñata for President Donald Trump and his supporters, Republican state lawmakers and governors are assembling in line: They want to get their whacks in too.

Beyond Oklahoma, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched FL DOGE in February, with a promise to review state university and college operations and spending. Republicans in the Ohio statehouse formed an Ohio DOGE caucus. One of the Iowa DOGE Task Force’s three main goals is “further refining workforce and job training programs,” some of which are run through community colleges, and its members include at least two people who work at state universities.

The current political environment represents “an unprecedented attack on higher education,” said Veena Dubal, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and general counsel for the American Association of University Professors.

The state-level scrutiny comes atop those federal job cuts, which include layoffs of workers who interact with colleges, interdepartmental spending cuts that affect higher education and the shrinking of contracts that support research and special programs at colleges and universities. Other research grants have been canceled outright. The White House is pursuing these spending cuts at the same time as it is using colleges’ diversity efforts, their handling of antisemitism and their policies about transgender athletes to force a host of changes that go beyond cost-cutting — such as rules about how students protest and whether individual university departments require more supervision.

Higher education, which relies heavily on both state dollars and federal funding in the form of student loans and Pell grants, research grants and workforce training programs, faces the prospect of continued, and painful, budget cuts.

“Institutions are doing things under the threat of extinction,” Dubal said. “They’re not making measured decisions about what’s best for the institution, or best for the public good.”

For instance, the Trump administration extracted a number of pledges from Columbia University as part of its antisemitism charge, suspending $400 million in federal grants and contracts as leverage. This led campus faculty and labor unions to sue, citing an assault on academic freedom. (The Hechinger Report is in an independent unit of Teachers College.) Now Harvard faces a review of $9 billion in federal funding, also over antisemitism allegations, and the list of universities under similar scrutiny is only growing.

Budget cuts are nothing new for higher education — when a recession hits, it is one of the first places state lawmakers look to cut, in blue states or red. One reason: Public universities can sometimes make up the difference with tuition increases.

What DOGE brings, in Washington and statehouses, is something new. The DOGE approach is engaging in aggressive cost-cutting that specifically targets certain programs that some politicians don’t like, said Jeff Selingo, a special adviser to the president at Arizona State University.

“It’s definitely more political than it is fiscal or policy-oriented,” said Selingo, who is also the author of several books on higher education.

“Universities haven’t done what certain politicians wanted them to do,” he added. “This is a way to control them, in a way.”

The current pressure on Florida colleges extends far beyond budget matters. DeSantis has criticized college campuses as “intellectually repressive environments.” In 2021, Florida state lawmakers passed a law, signed by the governor, to fight this perceived ideological bent by requiring a survey of public university professors and students to assess whether there is enough intellectual diversity on campus.

At New College in Sarasota, DeSantis led an aggressive cultural overhaul to transform the college’s atmosphere and identity into something more politically conservative. The governor has cited Hillsdale College, a conservative private Christian institution in Michigan, as a role model.

Faculty and students at New College sued. Their complaints included allegations of academic censorship and a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ students, many of whom transferred elsewhere. One lawsuit was ultimately dropped. Since the takeover, the college added athletics programs and said it has attracted a record number of new and transfer students.

Across America, Republicans control both the legislature and the governor’s mansion in 23 states, compared with 15 states fully controlled by Democrats. In those GOP-run states, creating a mini-DOGE carries the potential for increased political might, with little oversight.

In Florida, “state DOGE serves as an intimidation device,” one high-ranking public university administrator told The Hechinger Report. The administrator, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said “there’s also just this atmosphere of fear.”

In late March, university presidents received a letter signed by the “DOGE Team” at the governor’s office. The letter promised a thorough review by FL DOGE officials, with site visits and the expectation that each college appoint a designated liaison to handle FL DOGE’s ongoing requests.

The letter highlighted some of the items FL DOGE might request going forward, including course codes, descriptions and syllabi; full detail of all centers established on campus; and “the closure and dissolution of DEI programs and activities, as required by law.”

The state did not respond to a question about whether FL DOGE is designed to attack higher education in the state. Molly Best, the deputy press secretary, noted that FL DOGE is now up and running, and cities and counties are also receiving letters requesting certain information and that the public will be updated in the future. 

DOGE in Florida also follows other intervention in higher education in the state: Florida’s appointed Board of Governors, most of whom are chosen by the governor, removed dozens of courses from state universities’ core curriculum to comply with the Stop WOKE Act, a state law that took effect in 2022. The law, which DeSantis heavily promoted, discourages the teaching of concepts such as systemic racism or sexism. The courses removed from Florida’s 12 state universities were primarily sociology, anthropology and history courses.

“You can’t erase history,” said Meadow Swantic, a criminal justice major at Florida Atlantic University, a public institution, in an interview at its Boca Raton campus. “There’s certain things that are built on white supremacy, and it’s a problem.”

Fellow Florida Atlantic student Kayla Collins, however, said she has noticed some professors’ liberal bias during class discussions.

“I myself have witnessed it in my history class,” said Collins, who identifies as Republican. “It was a great history class, but I would say there were a lot of political things brought up, when it wasn’t a government class or a political science class.” 

At the University of Central Florida in Orlando, political science major Liliana Hogan said she had a different experience of her professors’ political leanings.

“You hear ‘people go to university to get woke’ or whatever, but actually, as a poli-sci student, a lot of my professors are more right-wing than you would believe,” Hogan said. “I get more right-leaning perspectives from my teachers than I would have expected.” Hogan said.

Another UCF student, Johanna Abrams, objected to university budget cuts being ordered by the state government. Abrams said she understands that tax dollars are limited, but she believes college leaders should be trusted with making the budget decisions that best serve the student body.

“The government’s job should be providing the funding for education, but not determining what is worthy of being taught,” Abrams said.

Whatever their missions and attempts at mimicry, state-level DOGE entities are not necessarily identical to the federal version.

For instance, in Kansas, the Committee on Government Efficiency, while inspired by DOGE, is in search of ideas from state residents about ways to make the state bureaucracy run better rather than imposing its own changes. A Missouri Senate portal inspired by the federal DOGE works in a similar way. Yet the federal namesake isn’t taking suggestions from the masses to inform its work.

And at the federal level, then-DOGE chief Elon Musk in February emailed workers, asking them to respond “to understand what they got done last week,” he posted on X. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” Employees were asked to reply with a list of five accomplishments.

The Ohio DOGE Caucus noted explicitly it won’t be doing anything like that.

“We’re not going to be emailing any state employees asking them to give us five things they worked on throughout the week,” Ohio state Rep. Tex Fischer, a Republican, told a local radio station. “We’re really just trying to get like-minded people into a room to talk about making sure that government is spending our money wisely and focusing on its core functions that we all agree with.”


Michael Vasquez wrote this article for The Hechinger Report.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.


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