The Epoch Times is now offering free five-year digital subscriptions to college students at all accredited institutions, including Hillsdale College. 

Chris Bob, program manager of subscriptions at the Epoch Times, described the reasons behind its expanded efforts at accessibility for students.

“Back in March, we were initially discussing the idea of making the student subscription available to everyone,” Bob said. “We didn’t want there to be any barrier for them to access the truth.”

He said broadening the program to all college students in the U.S., rather than working with a select few institutions, makes the process of launching it much easier.

“The only problem was that we had a limited network of colleges and universities that we thought would be able to help us accomplish our goal,” Bob said. “Instead of negotiating with each individual school, which could’ve been a lot harder, we decided to open it up so that anyone with an ‘.edu’ email should be able to access the Epoch Times for free for up to five years, and that officially launched on June 1.”

Even before offering this digital subscription program, the Epoch Times worked with Hillsdale’s Mossey Library to give students access to their standard newspaper.

“We also worked with your library to give students full access through the same system that you use to look through journals and pull up books,” Bob said.

The Epoch Times has worked to involve the Hillsdale student body in journalism in the past.

Clifford Humphrey, a 2020 Van Andel graduate and current executive vice chancellor of the Florida College System, wrote as a freelancer for the Epoch Times after it offered Hillsdale undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to assist in the paper’s efforts while developing skills of their own.

“I learned that they were hoping to find students from Hillsdale who would be willing to write articles about positives about America, just to push back against the idea that this is a bad, evil place,” Humphrey said.

Humphrey said he thinks the Epoch Times’ unique coverage of culture and current events is an asset Hillsdale students should take advantage of.

“I think it’s sort of a one-stop-shop for students like those at Hillsdale who are interested in both current events and the Western heritage, and there’s no one else doing that,” Humphrey said. “There’s no one else who’s going to unapologetically defend and promote the Western heritage without an asterisk and a bunch of qualifications.”

Freshman Nathan Fish agreed that the Epoch Times is a valuable resource for students.

“It’s great that they’re doing that,” Fish said. “It’s especially important for young Americans to learn the truth about politics in a world where the media is so biased. It’s important that they, as the future of our country, get truthful coverage of current events and an unbiased look at the political world.”