As colleges struggle to retain students in the wake of the pandemic, several institutions are offering tuition-free semesters for students who will enroll in the upcoming academic year.
Beloit College, a private liberal arts college in Wisconsin, announced ahead of the new academic year where classes officially begin on September 1, that it will offer a tuition-free ninth and 10th semester to students who enroll full-time in the 2020-2021 school year.
Tuition bills are coming due, and while millions of students across the country are weighing the risks of going back to college in the middle of a pandemic, the most financially strapped students carry an added burden of dwindling aid.
American Higher Education Alliance and the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration have announced a partnership which will allow their members to virtually collaborate on “co-development and programmatic internationalisation”.
While the Covid-19 pandemic has in many respects been an unmitigated disaster for American higher education, there has been one small silver lining: when unemployment rises during recessionary times, usually that increases college enrollments. Recently unemployed workers reason they should use newly idle time to improve their academic credentials, making themselves more marketable in the future. In economics lingo, the opportunity cost of going to college falls, since there is no longer a big loss of income associated with it.
Students, classrooms and instructors have persisted as key components of the U.S. higher education system since its first colleges opened in the 17th century. Despite major societal changes in the past four hundred years, the vast majority of postsecondary students began 2020 in traditional classrooms. Just three months later almost every institution of higher education (IHE) was forced to shift the delivery method of their instruction—some in less than a week—with varying degrees of success and failure.
Dozens of colleges and universities nationwide started 2020 already under financial stress. They’d spent the past decade grappling with declining enrollments and weakening support from state governments.
Now, with the added pressures of the coronavirus pandemic, the fabric of American higher education has become even more strained: The prospect of lower revenues has already forced some schools to slash budgets and could lead to waves of closings, experts and researchers say.
Over one million international students are currently studying in the United States. While their economic contributions to this country tend to be a primary focus, they also bring cultural, political, and historical perspectives that help build vibrant, diverse campus communities.
As the school year approaches, the coronavirus pandemic continues to surge in states across the country which means college students will be taking more of their classes online than in previous years.
Prestigious schools such as Harvard University have committed to holding all of their classes online next semester and according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, 46% of colleges plan to hold some, or all, or their classes online.
Spelman College announced on July 1 that the Atlanta campus would welcome back students to dorms and classrooms for the fall semester. Last week it reversed course. Classes would be online only.
In Waterville, Maine, Colby College plans to open most of its campus to students and faculty with one of the more ambitious testing protocols in higher education. The small school expects to administer about 85,000 Covid-19 tests this fall, including testing students, faculty and staff at least three times during the opening weeks of the academic term.
College Covid questions are about to be answered.
We will know in just a few weeks whether college enrollments for the fall tanked, whether schools will brave an in-person teaching model, a blend or go entirely online, whether schools can enforce social distance and mask regimens, and much more. Right now, everyone is speculating.