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Gen Z asks: what is school for? Plus, rebranding gentrification

A student waits to walk across the stage to receive her diploma during a graduation ceremony at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in Bradley, Illinois.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
A student waits to walk across the stage to receive her diploma during a graduation ceremony at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in Bradley, Illinois.

It's September, which means millions of young learners across the country are dusting off their backpacks and heading back to school. But a new study from Gallup and The Walton Family Foundation has shown that students are less engaged, and feel less challenged than last year, and about half of them have no plans to get a Bachelor's degree right after high school. Host Brittany Luse is joined by Karin Klein, education reporter and author of Rethinking College: A Guide to Thriving Without a Degree, and NPR Education Desk correspondent and Senior Editor Cory Turner to parse through what has next generation feeling despondent and if we need to rethink the purpose of high school.

Then, Brittany is on the housing hunt, but she's found that even outside major urban areas, small cities across the country are rapidly gentrifying. Richard E. Ocejo, author of Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City, joins Brittany to look at what happens when big city gentrifiers move to town and how some of them have rebranded gentrification.

Want to be featured on IBAM? Record a voice memo responding to Brittany's question at the end of the episode and send it to ibam@npr.org.

Copyright 2024 NPR

Brittany Luse
Brittany Luse is an award-winning journalist, on-air host, and cultural critic.
Barton Girdwood
[Copyright 2024 NPR]
Alexis Williams
[Copyright 2024 NPR]
Liam McBain
Liam McBain (he/him) is an assistant producer on It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders. He's interested in stories at the margins of culture.
Corey Antonio Rose
Jessica Placzek
[Copyright 2024 NPR]
Cory Turner edits and reports for the NPR Ed team.
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