Paul Fain is a Senior Fellow for Strada Center for Education Consumer Insights. He works to create content that sheds light on the gaps between postsecondary education and the workforce.

In the decade before joining Strada, Fain was a reporter and editor at Inside Higher Ed. He oversaw the news outlet's coverage of low-income students, college completion, community colleges, federal policy and emerging models of higher education, such as competency-based education. Fain was the founding host of the successful podcast, The Key with Inside Higher Ed, and managed IHE's coverage of the pandemic in 2020.

He also previously was a Senior Reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education, where for more than six years he covered leadership and finance. A former Staff Writer for C-Ville Weekly in Charlottesville, Va., Fain has written for The New York Times and won several journalism awards over the years. He has written chapters for books on innovation in higher education, published by the Harvard University Press and the Stanford University Press.

Fain is a graduate of the University of Delaware. A native of Dayton, Ohio, he currently lives in Takoma Park, Md.