Jamal Watson

Dr. Jamal Watson is an award-winning higher education journalist and a former editor at The EDU Ledger. He has written and edited for the publication since 2005. He is currently on the graduate school faculty at Trinity Washington University and has served as a professor and associate dean of the School of Business and Graduate Studies since 2019. He is a contributor to The Washington Monthly and a regular commentator on television networks. In 2025, Education Week listed him as one of the nation's top 200 university-based educators who influenced education policy in 2024. He made the list again in 2026. A native of Philadelphia, Watson earned his bachelor’s degree in English and Theology from Georgetown University, a master's degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, a master's degree in Higher Education from the University of Delaware and a master's and a Ph.D. in Afro-American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His writings have appeared in numerous publications, including The Hechinger Report, The Baltimore Sun, and USA Today. He is the author of a forthcoming biography on the Reverend Al Sharpton and The Student Debt Crisis: America's Moral Urgency, published by Broadleaf Books in September 2025.