Coronavirus Impact
Diverse Education reports that college closures and the transition to online learning have impacted students’ mental health, and caused feelings of loneliness, isolation, increased anxiety, sleeping troubles and difficulty concentrating on schoolwork. Many students are dealing with the added stress of financial concerns, food insecurity, housing concerns and lack of resources to complete their work. Erica Riba, director of higher education and student engagement at the Jed Foundation, said, “There are a lot of unknowns and uncertainty right now. We don’t know how long this will last, when things will go back to normal and what the new normal will be, so it’s completely reasonable for college students to feel unsettled, confused and anxious.”
In the Psychiatric Times, Yujuan Choy, MD, Chief Psychiatrist at the counseling center at the University of California, Irvine offered one way to fill the gaps in telehealth that occur when students leave campus and return home. While many state medical boards have loosened restrictions so that physicians can practice across state lines in a limited capacity during the pandemic, Choy says these decisions are not universal or standardized, forcing physicians to try to decipher the regulations of each state. Choy recommends federal and state laws to protect campus psychiatrists who provide telehealth services to out-of-state students, similar to a federal law that allows Veterans Administration psychiatrists to work with veterans nationwide without concern about crossing state lines. He suggests creating a special telepsychiatry license allowing campus psychiatrists to work with students enrolled in their universities, regardless of where the students are located.
At Cornell University, several campus organizations have committed to providing resources such as virtual discussion spaces and advice for students to connect and reach out to one another amid social distancing. “I think people are connecting in different ways,” said Rachel Bradley ’20, president of Cornell Minds Matter, a mental health advocacy organization on campus. “And it can be hard for people to figure out how to virtually reach out to someone and be like, ‘How are you doing?’”
In response to the pandemic, TimelyMD, a telehealth company, has launched the Campus.Health program. Colleges are offered an eight to 24 week program to cover health care during campus closures. Students can receive virtual access to medical and mental health professionals at no cost.
The LAist reports that messages sent to Crisis Text Line, a service that partners with the California community college system to support and advise students in crisis, increased 12% from February to March. The top issues reported were anxiety and stress, followed by relationship issues, then depression and sadness.
While away from campus, behavioral health professionals are continuing to assist student-athletes, many of whom experienced an unforeseen, abrupt end to their seasons. “The first couple of weeks I made sure not to be intrusive because of everything else going on with their academics, welfare and safety and all those types of things,” said Lee Dorpfeld, behavioral health coordinator within the University of South Florida athletics department. “I slowly put out some stuff letting them know that we are here if you need us, check in with me and those kinds of things.” Coaches remain in regular contact with players and may be most likely to pick up on an issue. “I think it’s important for our coaches to pay attention to the body language,” said Stephen Gonzalez, assistant athletic director for leadership and mental performance at Dartmouth. “The body language that you saw when you met with your athletes previously, has it changed significantly? How is their tone? What are things that they are saying? Do they sound like they are struggling with drive and motivation and/or are they feeling overwhelmed and stressed?”
According to the Washington Post, college students are rebelling against colleges and universities that refuse to cut tuition after closing campuses and offering their classes online. Usually, tuition includes benefits like seminars, laboratory classes, office hours and research opportunities with faculty. And colleges tout the importance of meeting a diverse group of peers through residence life and extracurricular activities. Many schools provided partial refunds for room and board, but have held firm on tuition, arguing that classes are still moving forward and credit will still be awarded toward degrees. “We can certainly all agree that this is not the spring semester any of us envisioned,” Johns Hopkins said in a statement. “With the current plans in place to complete the academic year and deliver on its mission in service of its students, at this time Johns Hopkins University is not offering tuition refunds.”
Colleges across the country are changing grading structures in a wide variety of ways. Some have switched to pass/fail but allowing students to request a letter grade; others are keeping letter grades but allowing students to opt for pass/fail for as many courses as they want; And some have waived the deadline for students to select the pass/fail grading option. EdSource asked California college students their opinions on the controversial issue. One student said, “A pass/no pass system will give students less to stress about during this time of uncertainty, and will help those who are struggling with their mental health, their family and their health. It can have a positive outcome.” Another student disagreed with the changes, saying “It will be unfair to those students who have put in more effort and worked to turn in every assignment and attend every class vs students who have slacked off this semester, and who will probably end up passing.”
Six leading higher education organizations issued a set of principles guiding how to accept academic credit in light of the coronavirus’s impact on instruction. The eight principles include acknowledging that the situation is placing stress on students and intensifying historical inequities.
College students across the country are pushing medical schools, graduate schools and prospective employers to relax rigid entry requirements. Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education said that students applying for graduate school or honors or a transfer should not be penalized. “Transcripts will look different as a result of this,” Mitchell said. “The sooner colleges can make clear what their policies will be in response, the sooner we’ll be able to quell some of the anxiety out there.”
According to a report from student debt resource platform Student Loan Hero, 81% of full-time college and university students are facing financial difficulties due to the coronavirus pandemic, with more than a quarter having trouble paying bills or feeding themselves. The report suggests that the pandemic may be disproportionately affecting college students of color. “Black and Hispanic students reported a much higher level of food and housing insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic than their white peers. Specifically, 33% of black students were having trouble covering food costs, and 22% struggled with housing expenses,” said Rebecca Safier, the report’s lead researcher. “In those same categories, the figures were 36% and 18% respectively, for Hispanic students. By comparison, 21% of white students reported suffering from food insecurity, and 14% faced housing issues.”
The Chronicle reports on the ways that some colleges are responding to the burden the pandemic has placed on the most disadvantaged students. Some students rely on the income from their campus jobs, can’t afford to travel home or don’t have a home to go to. Some don’t have access to the internet at their family home. Arrupe College, which serves as a bridge to a four-year college for financially needy students, polled students about internet access at home, finding that many only had access at the college or at libraries or coffee shops that the pandemic has shuttered. In response, Arrupe rushed wireless-hotspot devices to the students. Georgia State University is now relying more heavily on a recently created computerized system that tracks students for 800 risk factors. Prior to the pandemic, the school had hired counselors to intervene at the first sign of risk.
College leaders are trying to plan ahead for the next school year with some working toward online learning for the fall semester, an altered schedule, or some combination of the two. Some schools have run financial projections that account for drops in enrollment or state support, and their accompanying levels of budget cuts. Others are prepared to go online for the entire 2020-21 academic year, if need be.
California State University, Fullerton announced it was planning to begin the fall 2020 semester online, making it one of the first colleges to disclose its contingency plans for a prolonged disruption. “Our plan is to enter [the fall] virtually,” said Pamella Oliver, the schools provost, at a virtual town hall. “Of course that could change depending on the situation, depending on what happens with COVID-19. But at this point that’s what we’re thinking.”
As part of its live updates on the coronavirus’ effect on higher education, Inside Higher Ed reports that U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is making available the $6.2 billion earmarked in the Cares Act to help institutions deal with the financial fallout of the pandemic. DeVos also released the requirements dictating how the money can be used, which include prohibitions on using the money for certain purposes, including marketing, recruiting students and increasing endowments. Inside Higher Ed also reports that Davidson College is offering its students the option of deferring tuition bills for this upcoming fall semester.
Liberty University, which partly reopened its campus amid the coronavirus pandemic, confirmed they now have almost a dozen students sick with potential COVID-19 symptoms.
EdSource reports on the added hardship caused by the Coronavirus for college students experiencing housing insecurity through the story of one student. “As a couch surfer, everywhere I go is a little bit different. I am lucky enough to have Wi-Fi in two out of the three places that I stay at, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be quiet and that I [can] sit and focus,” she said. “I can’t tell people in their own home, ‘Hey, be quiet ’cause I need to take this class’ or ‘I need to take this test.’”
The New York Times reports on universities concerned about shrinking enrollment and lost revenue next year. One higher education trade group has predicted a 15 percent drop in enrollment nationwide, amounting to a $23 billion revenue loss. “The combination of fear for health and safety and the economic impact at the same time is one that I haven’t experienced, and I don’t think most university leaders have,” said Kent D. Syverud, the chancellor of Syracuse University. “Will families choose to send their kids to college?” he wondered. “Will they choose to not send them or delay them? I just haven’t found anybody who has the best crystal ball to answer it.”
The Education Department said that barely a quarter of the nearly 5,000 colleges and universities eligible to receive $7 billion in stimulus funding for emergency grants to students have applied for the money. However, higher education groups say schools have been stymied by bureaucracy and the lack of clear guidance from the agency. “It’s tragic that at a time when students are struggling to make ends meet, too many highly capable and intelligent leaders of higher ed institutions are dragging their feet and claiming it’s because there’s some lack of clarity in the law,” said Angela Morabito, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. Several higher education leaders say that schools that have applied for the aid are still waiting for the money. “It’s really wrong for the Department to suggest that the schools don’t want the money when they have not sent out a dime to the schools who have applied and can’t tell any schools what the rules are for spending it,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for the American Council on Education, a higher-education group.
The Chronicle reports on the formula that Congress chose to allocate higher education relief money which uses the measure of “full-time equivalent” students rather than a head-count figure to allocate the dollars. The result is that colleges with a high percentage of part-time students, which typically enroll more disadvantaged students, will get far less in emergency aid per student.
Higher education administrators are wrestling with how to distribute stimulus money and identify students who need help the most. In a letter to colleges, Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education, wrote that she wanted “to encourage the leadership of each institution to prioritize your students with the greatest need” while trying “to ensure that these funds are distributed as widely as possible.” Many institutions say they don’t expect their federal allotment to be enough for the need they’re seeing on their campuses. “The need to ration here is real,” said Sara Goldrick-Rab, a sociologist at Temple University who studies college-student poverty.
The Washington Post reports on guidance issued by the Education Department that narrows student eligibility for the nearly $7 billion in emergency grant aid set aside in the stimulus package. According to the Post, only students who can participate in federal student aid programs can receive money, a stipulation that shuts out undocumented and international students. That accounts for at least 1.5 million college students.
After canceling spring SAT and ACT test dates, the College Board and ACT are now making contingency plans so high-school students can take the college-admission exams in the fall. The College Board said it plans to offer its SAT at least one weekend a month beginning in August, provide more options for free school-day tests and, if school doesn’t open in the fall, create an online offering. The ACT will offer a computer-based, at-home option for students in late fall or early winter.
However, some are raising concerns about cheating and equity issues. There are questions about the fairness of expecting students who live in crowded or chaotic homes to take a three-hour-plus test in a quiet space without disruptions. Also, it is unclear whether the scores of this test could be compared to previous scores from tests taken in person at a testing site.
