Sami Edge covers higher education with a focus on community college for The Oregonian/Oregon Live, which is based in Portland. Edge has reported on public safety for The Santa Fe New Mexican, and wrote about K-12 schools in Idaho for the nonprofit newsroom, Idaho Education News. She was an American Press Institute community listening fellow, and is a graduate of the University of Oregon, where she edited the independent student paper, The Emerald. Born in Reno, Nevada, she plans to spend her career exploring the American West.
Beat: Higher education
The second education beat we will create is higher education, with an intensive focus on community colleges. Community colleges fly completely under the radar of Oregon newsrooms and most policymakers. Yet they are where most Oregonians enroll in college, particularly those who come from rural communities or are low-income, students of color or first-generation college students. We cannot overstate how crucial community colleges are to providing opportunity to young Oregonians – or how fundamentally under-covered they are, given the current state of journalism in Oregon.