It was a big year for higher education news in this state. Thankfully, Arizona Republic readers could count on reporter Rachel Leingang to tell them what they needed to know. Three students were prosecuted after they protested an appearance by Border Patrol agents at the University of Arizona, igniting a free speech firestorm that may or may not have led to their charges getting dropped. An Arizona State University economics professor accused the school of engaging in a shady deal with an online textbook company that forced him to fail some students. Mired with accreditation issues, Argosy University failed to pay millions of dollars in financial aid, screwing over countless students before shutting down in March. Leingang broke major developments on all these stories and more, hardly ever missing a beat.