Everyone needs a college degree, but not everyone can afford one.

The economic shift toward skilled labor, coupled with an increasing demand from employers across all industries for credentialed workers, means that college degrees are a must-have. While universities still market the benefits of their degrees as though they are a springboard to success, the reality is that there are fewer career tracks that don’t demand a degree and these jobs are paying less.

California’s historic drought has been years in the making. However it was only after Governor

Jerry Brown’s recent executive order mandating water restrictions that many Californians began to take notice. Calls accusing the governor of exempting "Big Agriculture," a heavy-hitter in California politics, became louder and louder.

However, the true story is more complex.

On Wednesday, April 8, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in the case,

Balsam v. Guadagno (Secretary of the State of New Jersey). The court affirmed a lower district court’s decision to dismiss a constitutional challenge to New Jersey’s closed partisan primary, holding that New Jersey may limit those who have a fundamental right to cast a vote in the primary election to party members.

A coalition of dozens of civil rights organizations are mounting pressure on Congress to not renew key provisions of the Patriot Act. They're specifically targeting Section 215 of the law, which is up for re-authorization on June 1. Section 215 is a provision which has allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to sweep up the phone metadata records on millions and millions of Americans living within the US, whether or not they are suspected of a crime.

I have participated in many casual debates that have argued whether nonpartisan candidates, if elected, could actually stimulate political reform from within; versus a “voter/constituent only” movement from outside the walls of state legislatures or Capitol Hill.

Ferguson, Mo. -- Voters in the City of Ferguson, Missouri turned out in record numbers for city council elections Tuesday night. Nearly 30 percent of registered voters went to the polls, almost doubling the turnout of the last city election. The increase in turnout resulted in historic changes in the composition of the city council.