Education

To supplement their meager wages, many government workers in Venezuela are turning to side hustles that include driving taxis, baking cakes, selling clothes or taking care of pets. And that’s having an impact on the quality of public services.

Undocumented students have been lobbying the University of California for the right to work legally on campus for more than a year. They argue that the UC’s 4,000 students who are not US citizens still need a way to earn a paycheck and get the same kind of academic work experiences that their peers do. But, federal immigration law prohibits hiring anyone without work authorization. And last week, UC regents voted against changing hiring rules. From San Francisco, KQED’s Madi Bolaños reports.

Following the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay, some professors warn that political encroachment in academia is a sign of the times — and rising authoritarianism. GBH’s Kirk Carapezza reports.

Getting visas to travel to the US has never been easy for people of certain nationalities. But pandemic closures made visa processing delays extend to a year or more. Now consulates are staffed up again, but as Sushmita Pathak reports from New Delhi, substantial delays remain because of large numbers of visa applicants.

The University of the People bills itself as the first nonprofit, tuition-free, American-accredited online university. Thanks to technological developments and the acceptance of online learning, the nature of higher education is changing fast. But are the university’s 137,000 students from more than 200 countries, including the US, getting a quality education? Emily Haavik reports on how the university works.