Kim Clark

Senior Writer

Expertise: Paying for college | Financial aid | Job market | Economics | Personal finance | Executive compensation | Corporate crime | Olympics

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Background: Kim Clark, a veteran journalist with more than 20 years of experience, specializes in college financial aid, personal finance, business, and economics. Since joining the magazine in 1998, she has written some of U.S.News & World Report’s bestselling cover stories. An expert on how to maximize college financial aid, Clark has shared her proficiency through national television appearances and in presentations to student, parent, and professional groups. As a 2007 Kiplinger Fellow at Ohio State University, she created a website, www.financialaidletter.com, which shows how misleading colleges’ financial aid information can be. The site has won widespread attention, including being named a notable entry for database websites in the 2007 Knight-Batten Awards sponsored by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism. Additionally, the website and award garnered media attention from the New York Times, American Public Media’s Marketplace, and many education-related websites.

Clark started her journalism career at the Portland (Maine) Press Herald, where she worked her way up from community reporter to State House correspondent. She then worked as a business reporter for the Baltimore Sun and as an economics writer for Fortune magazine. Her work also has been published in the Wall Street Journal and the New Republic. Clark received a bachelor’s with honors in semiotics from Brown University in 1981. In 1988, she earned a master’s in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where she studied economics, regulatory law, and accounting.

Honors: The J-Lab Institute for Interactive Journalism’s Knight-Batten Award, Notable Entry for Databases, 2007 | Kiplinger Fellowship, Ohio State University, 2007 | New England Associated Press Managing Editors Association Award for Public Service Journalism

Media appearances: Clark has appeared on CNBC’s Wall Street Journal Report With Maria Bartiromo and Power Lunch, CNN’s Headline News, FOX News Channel’s Studio B, and MSNBC. She is a frequent contributor to American Public Media’s Marketplace, a daily business show that airs on public radio stations nationwide, and has been a guest on National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show (WAMU-FM, Washington, D.C.) as well as numerous other national and major metro radio shows.