Joshua Bay is a national education reporter with expertise in policy analysis and data-driven journalism. He has reported on structural barriers to youth mental health services, the emergence of AI in the classroom, how free school meals legislation went mainstream, the challenges community college students face in earning a bachelor’s degree, and how immigrants and refugees have solved teacher shortages. Joshua is currently a reporter for Inside Higher Ed where he helps higher education leaders nationwide access research, reporting, data, and best practices on student success. His writing has also appeared in The 74, The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MinnPost, Youth Today, and Next City, and has been cited by Axios and Education Week.

As a Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellow, Joshua led a three-part project that translated complex enrollment and completion data into human-centered narratives exploring where—and for whom—the postsecondary system falls short. He earned an M.A. in Educational Transformation with a concentration in Advocacy and Policy from Georgetown University. While completing his studies, he conducted research for a nonprofit think tank on how redistricting and ward boundaries shaped disparities in education, housing, and public health across Washington, D.C. He also holds a B.A. in Communications with a concentration in Public Affairs from the University of La Verne.​