Nick Anderson is executive director of strategic communications for the American Council on Education. He oversees comprehensive efforts to engage colleges and universities on a broad range of issues through direct outreach to their leaders and other stakeholders. He is also responsible for designing plans to tackle some of the most significant short- and long-term challenges facing higher education. Among these projects is a campaign to raise public confidence in higher education called #HigherEdBuildsAmerica.
Before joining ACE in 2024, Anderson covered education for many years for The Washington Post. In that role, he specialized in identifying higher education trends and forging connections with students, parents, faculty, institutional leaders, and federal and state policymakers. He tracked public perceptions of the value of college and pursued stories on topics such as college admissions, affirmative action, and campus sexual assault.
Among his interests are the technological revolution in education, the national and global markets, the endless battle to overcome inequities of opportunity, and the sheer intellectual fun of academic life. His work won an Education Writers Association National Award for Education Reporting in 2016 for beat reporting.
Anderson also held editing roles at The Washington Post, including education editor. In 2007, he participated in coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting. The Post's reporting on that tragedy won a Pulitzer Prize. Previously, he was a political and congressional writer in the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times. He also worked for The Associated Press; The Mercury News in San Jose, California; and the Palo Alto Weekly. Anderson lives with his wife, Esther Schrader, in Montgomery County, Md., where their three kids.
