Spencer Fellowship for Education Reporting Grant

The Spencer Fellowship for Education Reporting at Columbia Journalism School offers journalists and educators the opportunity to develop impactful long-form journalism projects. With residential and non-residential options, selected fellows receive mentorship, financial support, and access to resources. This prestigious fellowship encourages innovative education journalism, enabling fellows to deepen their expertise while contributing to public understanding of educational issues. The program fosters collaboration and creativity, ensuring a diverse range of voices and perspectives in education reporting.

Since 2008, the Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship has welcomed some of the most accomplished education journalists from the U.S. and abroad to Columbia Journalism School, offering them the gift of time and resources to deepen their pool of knowledge and complete an ambitious journalistic project.  With over more than 15 years the fellowship has supported some of the most deeply-reported, creative and impactful education journalism being produced in the country.
Spencer projects take many different forms. Past fellows have written in-depth magazine and newspaper series, produced radio documentaries, created podcasts, and written books. Many have gone on to become journalistic entrepreneurs and leaders in the field.
The Spencer Fellowship for Education Reporting is open to journalists and educators who want to develop and publish an ambitious long-form journalism project that advances public understanding of education. Four fellows will be selected for this yearlong program based at Columbia Journalism School. The fellowship combines study and research with advising from faculty experts at Columbia, Teachers College and elsewhere. We welcome a wide range of applicants in terms of professional background and experience, media and project ideas.
There are residential and non-residential fellowship options. Each fellow is matched with a full-time faculty mentor from the Journalism School. In addition, each fellow selects an outside content advisor from any academic department outside the Journalism School. Meetings are set up on a one-on-one basis. In addition, fellows may select a researcher of their choice if such a one-on-one partnership makes sense for their project. The fellows meet regularly as a group with the director, in person or remotely. Throughout the year, scholars and other professionals are invited to meet with the fellows for special dinners or online to share their research.
Residential Fellows
Are expected to live near the Columbia campus in order to participate in events, take classes, and meet with their mentors, scholars, students and researchers during the course of the year. Fellows should not take on outside employment, except with the approval of the director. They are responsible for finding housing. The fellows will have a workspace in the Journalism School, complete with their own computer terminal, phone and printer.Are admitted as non-credit graduate students in order to comply with University requirements. They can take advantage of health insurance and access to libraries and other school facilities available to Journalism students. In addition, each fellow may make their own auditing arrangements for classes with the informal permission of professors inside and outside the journalism school throughout the year.Each residential fellow receives an $85,000 scholarship for personal living expenses. The scholarship is dispensed in two halves at the beginning of each semester. In addition, each fellow receives $7,500 for the year in project expenses, also dispensed in two halves. Separately, the Spencer grant covers the cost of tuition and other student fees, plus basic student health insurance for residential fellows.
Non-Residential Fellows
The non-residential option is designed for applicants who may not be able to relocate to New York City for the year for personal, or work-related reasons. We welcome all applicants, including journalists working in local media markets with limited resources that would welcome publishing an in-depth education project for their audience.Non-residential fellows live and work off campus and will design their reporting, study and research plans with their mentors and the director of the program. They may continue to work part-time. Non-residential fellows are admitted as “exchange scholars,” which means they are not eligible for health insurance. Coursework is limited by necessity, but other benefits remain available, such as access to Columbia libraries and campus buildings. Non-residential fellows receive the same level of expert mentoring and research assistance as residential fellows.  Non-residential fellows receive a $43,000 stipend and $7,500 project related expenses, each dispensed in two halves. Health insurance is not available.
The Journalism School’s Master of Arts methods course, called Evidence and Inference, is required in the fall for all fellows. Non-residential fellows will be connected to the lectures remotely.

Eligibility

Applicants must be U.S. citizens or legal residents.All U.S. citizens are eligible, including working journalists, freelancers and education professionals. There is no academic prerequisite. A college degree is not required. The most successful candidates are those with experience in the field of education journalism, defined in broad terms to include a wide swath of disciplines related to education such as juvenile justice, economics, arts and culture, poverty and the science of learning. A demonstrated ability to research and tell stories in a journalistic style. The strength of the project idea is key, along with the candidate’s potential to complete and publish or produce for a general audience.