The Brief

Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November. But many Americans don't wait that long to share a fall feast with their loved ones — that is, if they celebrate Friendsgiving.

Friendsgiving is exactly what it sounds like: A gathering close to the date of Thanksgiving, starring many of its starchy staples, usually served potluck-style, with friends instead of relatives.

Think fewer dinner-table political debates, less travel time, turkey optional (more on that later).

"There are your friends, and there's Thanksgiving," says Emily Brewster, a senior editor at Merriam-Webster. "It's a great example of a word that is just an excellent candidate for adoption as soon as someone thought of it."

This installment of NPR's Word of the Week series takes a look at where Friendsgiving comes from, why it stuck around and how to celebrate it.

A new name for an old tradition 

Of course, people have been celebrating Thanksgiving with friends for centuries.

The concept of Friendsgiving has long permeated pop culture, from 1973's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (in which an overburdened Snoopy cooks for the gang after they invite themselves over) to Friends, which went on the air in 1994 and included Thanksgiving plotlines in each of its 10 seasons.

But the proper noun only came along relatively recently.

Merriam-Webster started tracking "Friendsgiving" in 2007, after it appeared in posts on what was then Twitter and the early message board Usenet. The word's obvious meaning and accessible pronunciation helped it catch on quickly, Brewster says.

"Friendsgiving" popped up in lifestyle blogs and news articles over the years before hitting it big in 2011. That year, it was both the focus of a Bailey's Irish Cream ad campaign and a major plot point in a Real Housewives of New Jersey episode (titled "Gobblefellas").

Google searches for "Friendsgiving" spiked that November, and increased every year for the rest of the decade.

"All a word like this really needs is to just have more of a presence in the culture, and then it gets adopted into the language very quickly," Brewster says.

Merriam-Webster added "Friendsgiving" to its dictionary in 2020, 13 years after its first known use. While Brewster wasn't involved in that decision, she says "it was clear that it met our criteria."

"We had been seeing these examples of it for a few years, and … it looked like it wasn't going to go anywhere," Brewster adds.

The made-up holiday has inspired chain restaurant deals and numerous hosting guides, and even counted a sitting president among its participants in 2023. There are no official statistics on how many Americans celebrate Friendsgiving, but online surveys from recent years suggest numbers could be as high as 20%.

Brewster wonders whether we are seeing more Friendsgiving gatherings at least in part because there is now a name for them. It doesn't hurt that it's a catchy "blend word," which she says Americans especially get a kick out of (see: "Barbenheimer" or "Galentine's Day").

"I'm curious … if the existence of the word has somehow generated more of this kind of socializing," she adds. "I think words do have that power, that they can actually influence action."

<em>A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving</em> depicts an early example of Friendsgiving in 1973, well before the term entered the lexicon.

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"Friendsgiving" isn't one-size-fits-all 

Lizzie Post, the co-president of the Emily Post Institute, says the etiquette-focused organization started getting questions about Friendsgiving do's and don'ts around the time the word entered the lexicon.

"They were questions along the lines of: 'Is it OK to host Friendsgiving and go to your family Thanksgiving?' 'Can you only do Friendsgiving if your family isn't around and you can't travel to them?' " she explains.

The answer turned out to be a resounding yes. Many of those who celebrate Friendsgiving typically do so in addition to their family Thanksgiving, not instead of it.

"I think Friendsgiving is a nice way to be able to do both," says Emily Stephenson, a cookbook author whose work includes The Friendsgiving Handbook, published in 2019.

Stephenson says she has been hosting Friendsgiving — even though she never called it by that name — for about two decades, starting when she attended college abroad.

"It kind of implies … a younger person who's maybe doing things that's not going to be super traditional," she says. "And I do think part of what's implied in Friendsgiving is maybe it being the first time you host."

To Stephenson, younger generations' embrace of Friendsgiving makes perfect sense, particularly after the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throwing a dinner party can be a rare and special experience, especially for 20-something apartment dwellers who are potentially many years away from hosting a family Thanksgiving.

And there's not one right way to do it, considering the holiday is made-up and the real thing is just around the corner. Stephenson says that hopefully takes some pressure off.

"If you are hosting and a turkey stresses you out, you don't need to make turkey," she adds.

Post says these days, most of the questions the institute gets about Friendsgiving revolve around the etiquette of potlucks. The most important thing, she says, is to make clear who is responsible for what.

"I think that as people, we really value spending time with one another, taking a break from the everyday," Post says. "And whether that means eating off of paper plates … in front of a football game on the couch with a big buffet behind us, or whether that's a formally set table, matters not. It's the gathering that makes the big difference."

Every season of <em>Friends</em> had a Thanksgiving plotline, but the show isn't credited with coining "Friendsgiving." It ended in 2004, three years before Merriam-Webster started tracking the word's usage online.

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Tips for your next Friendsgiving 

That said, there are things both hosts and guests should keep in mind to help make Friendsgiving as easy as pie. Here's some of the best advice we got from Post and Stephenson:

For hosts:

• Do ask people if they have allergies or dietary restrictions beforehand. 

• Do keep track of who is bringing what, whether you assign specific dishes or leave guests to fill out a shared spreadsheet. And if someone shows up with something that wasn't on the list, serve it anyway. 

• Do take responsibility for the main dish — but it doesn't have to be a full turkey. Stephenson suggests preparing a less time-consuming turkey leg or breast, or skipping the bird altogether in favor of something like a shepherd's pie, savory galette or lasagna. 

• Do make it easier for out-of-town guests by tasking them with store-bought contributions, like drinks, napkins or a premade crudité platter.  

• Do give guests key details in advance, like what time the meal will actually be served (especially on a weekend) and a dress code if you're planning a more formal event. 

• Don't be afraid to ask guests to help out. Post recalls that when her mom used to host some two dozen Thanksgiving guests, she would ask people to not only bring a dish but sign up for a job — from setting out place cards to lighting candles to checking who wants ice cream with their pie. "Some people faint when I say this," Post laughs. "But … little tasks like that, when spread out over the whole group, not only make it a little bit even more of a communal experience, but they help ease the burden on the host."
  
• Do try to send guests home with leftovers of the dish they brought. "Just because they've brought it to your house doesn't automatically make it yours," Post says. If they don't want it, transfer it into another container so you can clean their original dish and send it home with them. 
  

For guests:

• Do inform the host of any dietary restrictions (if they don't ask), but do so "with an offer to bring something that meets your needs," Post says.  
  
• Don't arrive empty-handed. "I don't think there's many rules for being a guest besides … don't make soup," Stephenson says, since it adds another round of dishes to clean. 
  
• Do the heavy lifting before you leave the house. Since kitchen space will be limited, it's best to bring a dish that is ready to eat, even if it needs a few minutes in the oven first. 
  
• Don't show up expecting leftovers, though of course it's nice if you end up with some. 
  
• Do remember to thank your host — verbally is fine, Post says. If your friends are into group activities, you may well get a chance to share what you're thankful for anyway.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Warmer weather is on the horizon as Southern California braces for heat next week. For this Fourth of July weekend, expect high temperatures back into the 80s and in the 90s for some areas.

Today will start off cloudy, then gradually become sunnier. We're expecting temperatures to reach the upper 60s to around 70 degrees at the beaches, up to the low to mid-70s for the inland coast.

For L.A. County valleys, temperatures will reach 75 to 82 degrees. Inland Orange County will see highs from 74 to 79 degrees while the Inland Empire will see temperatures from 80 to 88 degrees.

Over in Coachella Valley, high temperatures will reach 99 to 104 degrees.

Looking ahead to Independence Day, forecasters say the marine layer should thin out, meaning we'll see more sunshine. Areas like the Inland Empire, the San Fernando Valley and the Antelope Valley could see temperatures in the upper 80s to low 90s.

Coachella Valley could see a high of 106 degrees. Meanwhile coastal areas will see highs in the 70s and 80s.

Make sure to stay hydrated!

The Los Angeles Police Department has completed its investigation into the killing of Keith Porter Jr., 43, and presented its findings to the District Attorney’s Office, according to a statement from the District Attorney’s Office. Federal officials have said Brian Palacios, the off-duty ICE officer who shot and killed Porter on New Year’s Eve in L.A. was acting in self-defense.

Where things stand

In an emailed statement to LAist, a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office said:

“The Los Angeles Police Department has presented this case to our office, and it is currently under review. Our experienced prosecutors will conduct a thorough analysis of all the facts and evidence to determine if we are able to prove a crime occurred beyond a reasonable doubt. Given the complexity of that process, it is difficult to predict a timeline for completion, and cases like this can take several months or more to resolve.”

What federal officials say

According to statements from federal officials, Palacios was off duty the night of the shooting. Federal officials and Palacios’ attorney have said he was acting in self-defense when he shot and killed Porter.

He was not named at the time. His identity became public through court record in an unrelated custody dispute.

In a statement released to the L.A. Times shortly after the shooting, Tricia McLaughlin, at the time a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said that Palacios had “bravely responded to an active shooter situation at his apartment complex” and was “forced to defensively use his weapon and exchanged gunfire with the shooter.”

Police said a rifle was recovered at the scene. Porter’s friends have said he was shooting a rifle into the air to celebrate the new year.

Why Porter’s family is pursuing a civil claim

Jamal Tooson, the attorney representing Porter's family, said he has witness testimony contradicting federal officials’ allegation that Porter and Palacios exchanged gunfire. He’s representing Porter’s family in a tort claim against the federal government.

The claim letter sent to the federal government says that Porter was “attempting to peacefully return to his residence” when he was killed. The letter claims Palacios did not personally observe Porter firing a weapon, and that he failed to use de-escalation tactics before opening fire. “The use of deadly force was unjustified, unreasonable and without legal cause,” the letter reads.

Tooson said he expects the federal government to reject the Porter family's tort claim. At which point, the family will pursue a civil claim, Tooson said.

Palacios on administrative duty

Authorities previously have said Palacios is still employed by ICE, and court records responding to the restraining order show he has recently been placed on administrative duty. ICE officials did not respond to questions about his current status.

Despite multiple efforts to put reforms on the November ballot, Los Angeles voters will not get to decide whether to roll back the city’s controversial “mansion tax” on apartment buildings.

The L.A. City Council voted 14-0 to shelve a proposed ballot measure on Wednesday, the final day to send proposals to the city’s voters in the upcoming general election.

The decision comes almost a week after a separate, statewide measure seeking to kill the tax — and other “mansion taxes” across California — was pulled from the November ballot.

Advocates for reform said the council is failing to confront declines in new housing development, which they blame on Measure ULA.

“The City Council unfortunately is still not living in reality with respect to what ULA has done to our apartment and commercial building market,” said Mott Smith, a USC adjunct professor of real estate and a board member of the Council of Infill Builders. “They're kind of living in denial.”

Supporters of the tax said keeping new exemptions for apartment developers off the ballot was the right decision.

Joe Donlin, director of the United to House L.A. coalition, said L.A. voters approved the tax in 2022 because they wanted to raise money for affordable housing and tenant aid programs.

“Voters should feel confident that what they passed is working,” Donlin said. “Of course there are big real estate interests who would prefer not to pay a real estate transfer tax. They're going to continue to try to convince the public that they should get a tax break.”

The measure that didn’t make it to the ballot

The City Council’s sidelined ballot measure would have asked L.A. voters to cancel the tax on new apartment buildings within the first 10 years of their construction.

Reform proponents with Mend It, Don’t End It — a coalition of business leaders, affordable housing developers and labor groups — said in a letter to the council ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, “If adopted by voters, these amendments would help build more housing and ensure Measure ULA is delivering on its promise to increase affordability and reduce homelessness.”

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who proposed putting the 10-year exemption on the ballot, along with Councilmember Tim McOsker, chided her colleagues for letting the measure die.

“If we think the fight is over, we’re kidding ourselves,” Yaroslavsky said. “The pressure behind ULA reform is not going to go away, because the valid concerns from people who build housing are not going away. We will keep finding ourselves back here if we don’t show courage, get ahead of it and make a reform we and housing builders can live with.”

A recent analysis from the L.A. Housing Department concluded the 10-year exemption would have made only minimal changes to the city’s housing landscape. City housing officials estimated the exemption would have reduced Measure ULA revenue by about 5% while boosting new apartment development by about 5%, or around 330 units per year.

Why a ‘mansion tax’ applies to apartments

The council’s decision to keep changes off the ballot comes after years of heated debate about Measure ULA’s impact on the L.A. real estate market.

It’s known as the “mansion tax” because it applies to sales of single-family homes priced at $5.3 million or more. The tax rate starts at 4% and rises to 5.5% on properties selling for $10.6 million or more.

However, critics say the “mansion tax” moniker was always misleading, because it also applies to sales of industrial and commercial properties, including apartment buildings.

Supporters of the tax have long said they oppose sending the policy back to voters. They endorsed the decision of an earlier city council committee, which voted against putting changes on the ballot.

However, L.A. voters will see a separate, narrowly tailored “mansion tax” measure on the November ballot. The council voted 13-1 to ask voters to cancel the tax on Pacific Palisades homeowners who sell their properties within five years of the Palisades Fire.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Palisades, said exempting fire victims is the right thing to do.

“They’re not selling because they want to,” she said. “They’re selling because they have already lost everything and there’s nothing left. Putting this tax on these folks who are trying to recover and reckoning with the fact that some of them just aren’t coming home is unspeakably cruel.”

The fight is over for now, but maybe not for long

Since taking effect in April 2023, the tax has raised more than $1.2 billion for affordable housing construction and programs aimed at helping struggling tenants stay housed. Some of that money has been held up due to strict limits on how funding can be spent, as well as the L.A. City Attorney’s ongoing opposition to tenant aid funding plans.

Economists have published studies concluding the tax has driven down new housing development relative to other parts of L.A. County. A recent RAND study also found the tax has cut into revenue raised by other local property taxes and development fees, reducing funding for schools, parks and other government services by about $452 million.

Meanwhile, Measure ULA supporters dispute conclusions about the tax slowing down housing growth. They say hundreds of affordable apartments have already opened or begun construction, thousands more are set to be built or preserved, and tenants have received tens of millions of dollars in rent relief and income support.

Previous efforts to lower or eliminate the tax on new apartment buildings have all stalled. The most dramatic development came last week, when last-minute negotiations in the California legislature convinced an anti-tax group to pull a statewide November ballot measure that would have asked voters to kill Measure ULA and “mansion taxes” in other parts of the state.

That Sacramento deal did not include cuts to L.A.’s “mansion tax,” as many in the real estate industry were hoping to see. Instead, state lawmakers agreed to put a separate measure on the November ballot, Proposition 43, which will ask Californians to make it harder to pass new special taxes by increasing the voter approval threshold to two-thirds, up from a simple majority.

Close to 58% of L.A. voters approved Measure ULA in November 2022, when it first appeared on the ballot. Though efforts to eliminate or scale back the tax via the November ballot are now officially dead, Mott Smith said future ballot fights remain likely.

“Already, everybody is gearing up for the 2028 election,” Smith said. “We're going to be living with another two years of pain in the real estate market, and Los Angeles will continue to lag behind the rest of the country and the rest of the state in terms of housing production.”

For many Los Angeles college students, public transit is often the cheapest and sometimes the only way to get to campus as gas and other costs rise. But using buses and trains can come with a price beyond the fare.

Metro offers free passes for students at participating K-12 schools and community colleges, while some universities offer discounted transit passes for their students. However, college students who rely on transit have to leave for class hours early to avoid being late, weigh safety concerns, stretch already tight budgets and miss out on college life, students told CalMatters.

Late buses, early alarms

For some students, using transit means getting ready and leaving long before class starts. Makeda Webb wakes up at 6 a.m. in her apartment in Willowbrook, more than five hours before her first class at Cal State Dominguez Hills, less than 5 miles away in Carson.

On most mornings, the psychology major competes with her brother and grandfather, who has dementia, for their one shared bathroom. Even though her earliest class starts at 11:30 a.m., Webb leaves home by 8:30 a.m. because her commute usually takes 40 minutes and unreliable buses have made her late before. Some professors have even threatened to drop her from their classes if she kept arriving late, so she doesn't take any risks.

"The bus is constantly late or breaking down," Webb said. "You have to wait another hour for the next bus. … (It) makes me late for school, so I have to leave extremely early to make sure I'm on time."

She doesn't have a car, so despite delays, taking the bus is cheaper for her than paying for gas and other driving costs. Her university offers Metro U-Pass, which allows participating university students to take unlimited bus and train rides for the semester for a flat fee. For spring 2026, the pass cost $67.50.

Her commute gets worse at the end of the day. When Webb takes the bus in the evening after class and extracurriculars, frequent stops and unruly passengers stretch the trip to close to an hour.

"Even though I only live (half an hour) away by bus, it takes double that to get there because the bus driver has to stop the bus or … something stupid is going on, like chaos, which makes it take forever," Webb said.

Webb walks home at night after getting off the bus at a stop near her home. “It’s not always enjoyable, especially with the type of people that get on the bus. We have a lot of drug addicts, we have a lot of people who do crazy types of stuff on the bus,” she said.

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For women, the train comes with risks 

Victoria Imo, a graduate student studying social work at the University of Southern California, has a car but often takes the Metro A Line, transferring to the E Line to get to campus. She uses her U-Pass to avoid the high cost of gas and parking.

Imo's U-Pass is covered by USC's mandatory transportation fee, which costs $146 for the spring semester. That is cheaper than filling her tank multiple times, which she said can cost up to $60 each time, or buying a parking permit, which can cost up to $585 per semester before added fees.

But saving money means she has to take extra precautions. Because of safety concerns on the train, Imo thinks carefully about where she sits, often near other women, and avoids using her iPad or laptop, opting to read instead. She wears a mask and sometimes headphones without music to avoid unwanted interactions.

In the past, Imo carried pepper spray and a Taser – the latter of which she previously set off to deter an unruly man who was "yelling behind me while I was walking up the stairs," she said. She activated the Taser so it crackled really loudly while she walked to her car.

Metro contracts with the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles Sheriff's Department for law enforcement across its systems. The agency also has transit ambassadors to complement officers, report issues and connect passengers with resources. Still, Imo said she has not reported any safety concerns because she's so used to them.

"I haven't gone out of my way to give any feedback, because at this point, I feel like this is just what the train system is," Imo said. "It seems like everyone's used to it."

Imo walks down the stairs at the Sierra Madre Metro Station in Pasadena to catch a train to campus.

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Gina Medrano, a psychology student at Santa Monica College, described similar concerns. She has her own car, but gas prices have pushed her to use her GoPass to take the train from the Atlantic Station in East Los Angeles to her school.

She carries pepper spray, avoids wearing headphones and switches train cars if anyone makes her feel uncomfortable. After witnessing a near-fatal incident, Medrano said boarding a Metro train makes her feel uneasy.

"This lady started hitting a man on the train," she said. "After she kicked the door of the train while it was running … she jumped out of the train … and it was right in front of me. I had to call my mom to come pick me up, because I just couldn't handle what I'd just seen."

Medrano said the incident was one of several disturbing things she's seen on the train. She regularly sees things that make her question her safety and wonder why there isn't more enforcement.

"It's kind of normal to see needles and unsightly things on the train," she said. "There's not really a lot of enforcement or safety. I don't really feel safe on it."

For some, police presence sets off alarms

Zak Nirenberg, an electrical construction and maintenance major at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, said their biggest safety concern is not other Metro riders, but Los Angeles Police Department officers.

"They're intimidating," Nirenberg said. "Most of the time they're on the (train), they're looking for someone to harass or actively harassing someone."

Zak Nirenberg rides the Metro train from Grand/LATTC Station in Los Angeles to Pico Station in downtown Los Angeles on April 30, 2026. They said their biggest safety concern is not other Metro riders but Los Angeles Police Department officers.

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Norma Eisenman, a spokesperson for the LAPD, declined to comment on Nirenberg and others' concerns about officers' presence during fare inspections. The department directed CalMatters to file public records requests for documents about LAPD protocols.

Metro says safety is improving

Metro says it's making progress on safety, pointing to recent declines in violent crime and nonviolent offenses. The agency attributed those declines to increased visible uniformed personnel, fare enforcement and partnerships with behavioral health organizations on its transit system.

In a February Metro media release, Maya Pogoda, a spokesperson for the agency, wrote that violent crime fell 6.7% in 2025 from the year before. She added that crimes involving trespassing, narcotics and weapons decreased 33%.

Metro also announced the Department of Public Safety Dashboard, which publishes safety and security data submitted by law enforcement agencies and shows a more complicated history. According to the dashboard, after Metro resumed bus fare collection following a pandemic pause, trespassing reports, which include fare evasion, rose nearly 1,200%, from 126 in 2022 to 1,635 in 2023. In 2024, the number more than doubled to about 4,500.

Arrests also rose sharply, with LAPD and sheriff's department arrests increasing by 81% in 2023 to about 5,000, then nearly doubling to about 10,000 in 2024. Since 2020, the top two crime types reported on Metro have been trespassing and battery.

Pogoda wrote that the agency is trying to address safety through a mix of law enforcement and public services aimed at addressing homelessness, addiction and untreated mental illness. These efforts will all be coordinated through Metro’s new Department of Public Safety.

Los Angeles Police Department officers conduct fare inspections on a Metro train at Grand/LATTC Station in Los Angeles on April 30, 2026. According to Metro, officers conducted more than 116,000 train boardings and about 500,000 TAP card inspections in 2025 alone.

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Student passes help, but gaps remain

Even Metro programs meant to make public transit more affordable for students don’t remove every cost barrier. For some, the upfront cost of even a discounted pass can still be out of reach.

Stephanie Verdugo, a sociology major at Cal State LA, lives in on-campus housing and relies on Metro buses to run errands and, previously, to get to work. She said her university sells a U-Pass to students for about $100 a semester, but even as a frequent transit rider, Verdugo said she couldn't afford the upfront cost.

"I always had a very tight budget … so I could never actually buy (the U-Pass)," she said. "I would just have to pay the regular way."

Still, even while paying Metro's regular $1.75 fare for bus or train rides, Verdugo said using public transit has saved her money. That is partly because the agency's fare-capping system limits how much regular fare riders can spend to no more than $5 each day and $18 each week before rides are free.

"I don't pay a lot of money considering how much I travel on the bus," Verdugo said. "As a person who was traveling every single day for a month straight, I only spent like a maximum of $80, which, to me, is really good."

For Nirenberg, the Los Angeles Trade-Technical College student, the GoPass saves them a lot of money on gas and parking.

"(It's) not just for school, but for life in general. I don't pay for parking anywhere," they said. "I don't have to worry about finding parking. It's fantastic."

‘I've never been to a college party’ — when transit derails social life

Beyond getting to class, transit can also shape how much of college life students get to experience. Julian Levy, a political science student at Occidental College, lives in on-campus housing and relies on public transit to visit his family and get around Los Angeles. Without a car, Levy said, participating in college life off campus means planning around transit schedules, deciding whether a trip is worth the time and often leaving early to get back on time.

"I remember just feeling so frustrated … just because I didn't have a car," Levy said. "I had to leave early from (a friend's birthday party) because of the time I would have to spend on the much slower public transit system."

One trip to an Occidental soccer game at Chapman University in Orange made Levy reconsider taking transit to away games. He had taken Metro and Metrolink to get there without any issues, but after the game, one of the few trains back was canceled. A second train eventually came, but only after Levy waited about two and a half hours on the platform. He ended up getting back to campus after midnight.

"I remember thinking after that, 'Do I really want to rely on public transit?'" Levy said. "I've always been able to get where I've needed to go, but I've definitely reconsidered whether something is worth the risk of getting stranded somewhere."

For many students CalMatters spoke to, public transit can be unpredictable, crowded and unsafe. Still, it remains the most affordable, and sometimes the only, way for students to reach campus and make attending college possible at all.

"I'm a low-income student, I've never been to a college party. … I don't have the money, I don't have the time," said Webb, the Cal State Dominguez Hills student. "I have not gotten the full (college experience), but I'm still thankful, though. At least there's an option."

Martin Romero is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.