I had to buy a new phone recently after my screen mysteriously cracked. I was excited to get some fancy new tech that would work better than my old one. Instead, my new phone has been freezing and restarting every 45 minutes.

That’s either a decent metaphor about dashed hopes—the subject of a must-read new story about Montreat College by my Assembly colleague Ren Larson—or a transparent attempt to shoehorn my petty complaints into this newsletter. Either way, I have to drive 45 minutes to the closest warranty-approved repair shop, so here’s what’s in today’s issue.

— Matt Hartman […]

Matt Hartman is a higher education reporter for The Assembly and co-anchor of our weekly higher education newsletter, The Quad. He was previously a longtime freelance journalist and spent nearly a decade working in higher ed communications before joining The Assembly in 2024.

Ren Larson is an investigative reporter for The Assembly. She previously worked at The Texas Tribune and ProPublica. Her work has won the national Murrow, Philip Meyer, and MIT McElheny awards.