2022 Winners for the EGF Accelerator’s Eddie Prize

About the Winners:

It is widely known that low-income students face increased barriers to completing a degree, but research on the ways poverty and finances intersect with the Latino experience is harder to find, even though Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States and one of the fastest growing populations. Less than 20% of Latino adults have a bachelor’s degree.

The goal of this limited-series podcast was to center student voices as the experts of their own life experiences while also helping to fill a void on research into the barriers keeping more Latino students from completing degrees. A student survey funded with the help of an EWA Reporting Fellowship enabled Camille Phillips to do both.

Comments From the Judges:

“What made this piece grip me was the centering of those who are most affected – college students in the system now – and built out from there with educators, government officials and academic experts of all backgrounds who have studied this issue. I am so exhausted with pieces who talk down to people of color, discuss Latinos like some type of confusing and lesser-than group of people and center the findings and facts in a clinical way. You cannot listen to this and not relate if you ever had any struggle.”

“Fantastic use of research — I love that the journalist had a question, found there was no research on it, and worked with professionals to conduct a robust survey. This podcast is a great format to understand the data through the lens of students, while explaining statistics we always hear as one-liners, with context and nuance.”

Photo credit: Camille Phillips, Texas Public Radio