In December 2006, the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University, announced the creation of a new, $7,500 journalism fellowship to encourage and support in-depth coverage of the mission and work of the nation’s 1,157 community colleges.

Ana M. Alaya of the Newark-Star Ledger has become the first associate in the fellowship program to publish a major project. Alaya's story, "Free Rides to College Worry N.J. Educators," ran on November 25, 2007 with charts, photos and two videos. Her project focuses on problems plaguing the NJ STARS scholarship program, which aims at keeping top high school graduates in-state by sending them to community colleges and then to public senior colleges, tuition-free.

--Read the full-length version of Ms. Alaya's article at http://hechinger.tc.columbia.edu/assets/hechinger/AlayaonNJSTARSProgram.pdf