Arenson earned an undergraduate degree in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970,[2] where she was an editor for the student newspaper, The Tech.
In 1972, she received a master's degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
[3] Arenson spent most of her career as a reporter covering higher education for The New York Times.
It had been provided by Columbia officials before its official release on the condition that she did not "seek reaction from other interested parties" including the students who had lodged the complaints, though Columbia agreed to allow a professor who had "exceeded commonly accepted bounds of behavior" to respond.
[5] The Times was obliged to append a note detailing a departure from its policy that "writers are not permitted to forgo follow-up reporting in exchange for information",[5] which they noted Arenson and editors had not recalled.