Unaffiliated voters make up 38.84% of NC's 7,640,734 voters. The two major parties trail 8-points behind, with 30.25% of voters being Democrats and 30.24% being Republicans.

Lia Smith was a senior at Middlebury College, a transgender woman and, for a time, an athlete on the school’s diving team. But she struggled to feel accepted, and in October, she took her own life.

Views on the importance of higher education have fallen sharply in recent years.

A class at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore wants to help students break free from smartphone dependency and develop healthier habits.

Americans are more pessimistic than ever about the value of a degree—but enrollment keeps going up.

Department officials say they are creating a level playing field. Advocates and committee members say they are leaving students vulnerable. The Trump administration wants to streamline its existing higher education accountability measures with a new earnings test, holding all postsecondary programs to the same standard—regardless of the certification level or institution type involved. But doing so could water down an existing accountability measure for certificates and for-profit programs.

Nearly 6 percent of about 50,000 programs would fall below a new salary threshold, according to federal data. The Education Department is discussing proposed regulations this week.