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Malia Politzer is the executive editor of piqd.com, and an award-winning long-form journalist based out of Spain. She specializes in reporting on migration, international development, human rights issues and investigative reporting.
Originally from California, she's lived in China, Spain, Mexico and India, and reported from various countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Her primary beats relate to immigration, economics and international development. She has published articles in Huffington Post Highline, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue India, Mint, Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy, Reason Magazine, and the Phoenix New Times. She is also a regular contributor to Devex.
Her Huffington Post Highline series, "The 21st Century Gold Rush" won awards from the National Association of Magazine Editors, Overseas Press Club, and American Society of Newspaper Editors. She's also won multiple awards for feature writing in India and the United States.
Her reporting has been supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Institute For Current World Affairs, and the Global Migration Grant.
Degrees include a BA from Hampshire College and MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where was a Stabile Fellow at the Center for Investigative Journalism.
How To Pay For College? Some Students Are Selling Shares Of Their Future Incomes
Anyone who's gone to college in the U.S. knows that a good education often comes with a hefty price tag. Paying for education isn't easy—and often means that more and more students are taking on considerable debt.
Currently, student debt is the second-highest consumer debt in the United States, second only to mortgages: As of 2018, student debt has peaked at $1.5 trillion—with an average debt of $37,000 for new grads.
But what if there was another way to pay? This Planet Money episode explores a new model that some colleges are employing to help students fund their education: Rather than taking out loans, students agree to pay a certain percentage of their income upon graduating to the school for a fixed number of years. Effectively, it's like selling stock shares—except instead of shares of a company, these are shares in their future selves.
The more a student makes upon graduating, the more the university gets back. While it might sound crazy at first, it's actually a concept with precedent: David Bowie attracted investors with a similar model, by selling future shares of royalties to investors in exchange for a larger up-front payment.
Could this be the solution to the U.S. student debt problem? Perhaps not entirely—but it's a promising idea definitely worth exploring, and makes for a fascinating listen.
