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Outlet profile

Open Campus

U.S. center-left

Owned byIndependent nonprofit (Open Campus Media Inc.), co-founded by Scott Smallwood and Sara Hebel; no corporate or individual owner
FundingFoundation grants and philanthropic donations; major funders include Arnold Ventures, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Joyce Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, and the American Journalism Project; discloses all donors giving $5,000 or more annually
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

Open Campus was founded in 2019 by Scott Smallwood and Sara Hebel, both former senior editors at The Chronicle of Higher Education, with the goal of filling gaps in local and national coverage of colleges and universities. The organization operates as a nonprofit and has grown to partner with 20 local newsrooms, providing embedded higher-education reporters supported by a national editorial team. It has delivered more than $2 million to partner news organizations and produced over 600 stories reaching an estimated 18 million monthly readers. Funding comes from prominent education and journalism philanthropies, including the Lumina Foundation (which focuses on increasing college attainment and equity) and the Joyce Foundation (which targets economic opportunity in the Great Lakes region), giving the outlet a broadly reform-minded orientation on higher education access and equity. Open Campus does not carry advertising and claims editorial independence from its funders. Since the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025, the outlet has closely tracked federal actions against universities, including anti-DEI directives, funding threats, and the administration's proposed 'compact' for colleges, consistently reporting these developments from a scrutinizing, accountability-oriented stance. No major editorial controversies or corrections scandals have been publicly documented.

Sources

  1. About Open Campus
  2. Funding – Open Campus
  3. Open Campus – American Journalism Project
  4. Open Campus Media – Carnegie Corporation
  5. Open Campus Media Inc – ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer
  6. Trump's compact is latest attempt to wield influence on campuses – Open Campus
  7. Federal ruling ends Trump's anti-DEI directive aimed at universities – Open Campus
  8. Open Campus welcomes first partner newsrooms to community college project

Profile compiled 2026-08-14; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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