Coronavirus Impact
The Chronicle tells the story of Andrew Pérez, a first generation student at Harvard University who is finishing his senior year at home with his family in California. He talks about his adjustment to Harvard as a freshman, the difficulties he is facing with distance learning, and his disappointment about losing the chance to celebrate his graduation with his family in the way they imagined.
Middlebury College counseling center is navigating the challenges of providing mental health care at a distance. Given divergent state laws on teletherapy, counselors have only been able to continue holding Zoom counseling sessions with some students whose home states permit it. With other students, they have adopted a “case management” approach, where counselors work with students to locate a licensed therapist in their area. Even where they are able to use technology to connect to students, some students don’t have stable enough internet connections or a private room in which to speak to a counselor. Furthermore, Counseling Services Director Gus Jordan says that using Zoom meetings as a primary communication method over the past two months has led to what he calls “Zoom fatigue” – people have gotten tired of virtual meetings.
Madison 365 reports that University of Wisconsin international students who opted to stay on campus, now stuck in the US indefinitely, are facing a unique set of challenges. As they practice social distancing thousands of miles from home, many Asian students are concerned about the xenophobia and discrimination that has proliferated in the midst of the pandemic.
Experts from the American Medical Association (AMA), Active Minds and The Steve Fund laid out guidelines to help students cope with the mental strain of the pandemic. Suggestions include practicing self-care, staying connected with family and friends, establishing a new routine, limiting time watching the news, being kind to others and helping when needed. Dr. Patrice Harris, president of the AMA, said people should be “attentive to their own needs” which includes maintaining a healthy diet and sleep schedule. “I would say to allow yourself to feel whatever feelings you’re having,” she said.
In their live coronavirus updates, Inside Higher Ed reports that a new survey of about 8,000 high school parents, particularly black and Hispanics, report that their children’s plans after high school have changed. Additionally, Inside Higher Ed is reporting that a new survey from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators of its member institutions found that most are still struggling with disbursing the emergency aid grants to students due to confusing and inconsistent guidance from the U.S. Department of Education.
In contributions to both The Chronicle and The Atlantic, Michael Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College, argues that colleges and universities “do not yet have the ability to bring students and staff back to campus while keeping them safe and healthy.” He writes that planning to bring students back amid excessive risks “constitutes an abdication of our moral responsibility as leaders.” In the Chronicle, he says colleges are ideal settings for accelerating the spread of Covid-19, concluding, “My hope is that we seize this moment and act not out of self-interest but out of moral concern. If we fail to do so, we may never have another chance.”
In an op-ed in the Hechinger Report, Charlie Eaton, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced, explained how universities could use their endowments, which combined equal 600 billion in assets as of 2017, for coronavirus recovery. That sum exceeds the most recent Covid-19 relief package passed by Congress. To help students, he says, universities can use their endowments to maintain or even expand aid for low-income students to cover basic needs like rent and food, cancel university-issued student loans or stop collections on those debts, and maintain university payrolls. Donations given to endowments often have restrictions on how they are used. Eaton says these donors should release universities to use restricted funds for emergency coronavirus relief spending. Additionally, endowment funds sitting in hedge funds have restrictions on early withdrawal. Eaton argues, “As some of the wealthiest in our society, private-equity and hedge fund managers should remove any obstacles for universities to recall endowment funds.”
The Hechinger Report explores whether the coronavirus will increase the rate of “summer melt,” meaning when high school seniors who are admitted to college and plan to go, don’t show up. Because the pandemic has closed schools and eaten away at household finances, the Hechinger Report says, the risk of summer melt is higher than normal. Colleges and nonprofit organizations are hoping to reduce summer melt by reaching out with virtual summer bridge programs, texting and remote peer-counseling.
As colleges and universities announce plans to open in the fall, some higher education experts and stakeholders have pushed back and are warning against reopening too soon. In the Washington Post, Scott White, a retired college admissions expert, asked how realistic it is to assume that students will stick to social distancing rules. “Who thinks students will not engage in social activities at close quarters (have you met college students?), including having parties and sex.” he writes. And he wonders what colleges will do if students do disregard the new rules? “Call the campus police?” In the Chronicle, Stan Yoshinobu, a professor of mathematics at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, explained lists reasons why he believes campuses cannot open in the fall including lack of vaccine, income disparities that affect access to health care, lack of adequate testing, no current treatment, the risk of getting students physically to campus from their homes, and the absence of sufficient staff or equipment for testing and contact tracing on campus. Additionally, he asks if, when students are back in the fall, if they would be banned from going into the local community, or if the community members would be banned from campus. Also in the Chronicle, Robert Kelchen, an associate professor of higher education at Seton Hall University writes that higher education will likely be one of the last industries to resume business as usual, due to concerns with social distancing, contact tracing, and the intermingling of younger students and older faculty and staff members.
According to a College Reaction poll, nearly two thirds of college students say they would attend in-person classes if colleges reopen in the fall, even if there is no coronavirus vaccine or cure. AXIOS reports that while this is good news for the financial survival of colleges, it poses a potential threat to public health, as physical distancing will be required to prevent additional spikes in cases.
In the wake of Harvard University’s announcement that it would resume teaching and research in the fall, undergraduates penned a petition to the administration arguing against a virtual fall semester. The #NoVirtualFall petition, which last week had nearly 700 undergraduates, parents, and alumni, condemned the plan to hold an open fall “no matter what.” “We call on Harvard College to postpone, rather than virtually begin, the fall semester if COVID19 conditions prevent the timely commencement of on-campus activities,” the petition reads.
Initial recommendations for the University of Colorado Boulder‘s fall semester include safeguards like ramped up testing and contact tracing, personal protective equipment for every student, faculty and staff member, limiting person-to-person contact through online courses and smaller in-person classes, and changing the student code of conduct to enforce COVID-19 public health requirements. The recommendations, compiled by a campus planning team, are a balancing act between ensuring the health and safety of everyone on campus and still allowing a somewhat normal university experience.
The University of Notre Dame announced that it will bring all students back to its Indiana campus to start the next academic year two weeks early. Students will arrive at Notre Dame the week of Aug. 10 and will finish the semester before the Thanksgiving break. They won’t return to campus until January. The schedule is designed to limit travel off campus in response to the coronavirus pandemic. “Covid is a risk but there is also a risk for failing to educate young people who will be our leaders of tomorrow,” Notre Dame’s president, Father John Jenkins, said. “There’s a risk both ways but we think we can handle this in a safe way.” The University of South Carolina has also decided to bring students back to campus in August, switching to remote instruction after Thanksgiving.
In April, the campus of California State University, Fullerton became one of the first U.S. colleges to disclose contingency plans for prolonged coronavirus disruptions. Timothy White, chancellor of the California State University system, emphasizes to NPR’s All Things Considered that classes are not canceled. “The university does remain open. But we’re going to shift as much as we can into the virtual environment. And we’re also going to be spending the next several months with our faculty and staff on professional development and training and the introduction of even more sophisticated ways in which to do virtual learning.” He stresses the long term picture of making progress towards a degree, despite the fact that the experience will be different in the fall, which he says, “creates a lifetime of opportunity you otherwise would not have economically and socially, career wise.”
Many colleges are developing open-ended contingency plans around the fall semester to better manage expectations. “There’s a great deal of speculation about everything,” said Terry Hartle, the American Council on Education’s senior vice president of government and public affairs. “When you’re in the middle of a hurricane, it’s hard to see what things are going to look like” after it passes.
In the Presidents Speak series for Education Dive, Michael Alexander, the president of Lasell University, in Massachusetts, says that colleges should work together to make higher education more accessible in this challenging time. “The big question outstanding is whether higher education institutions will band together to save our system of higher education, in the same way that members of our communities have rallied to withstand the crisis for the benefit of students” he writes. “Will leaders and trustees put aside their standard ways of doing business, and their emotional attachments to tradition and identity, to invent new ways of conducting business, to accept new ways of collaborating or consolidating, and to be creative and ingenious in altering curricula and modes of delivery in order to lower costs in a big way?”
The new coronavirus relief effort by House Democrats earmarks more than $37 billion for higher education, Education Dive reports. The proposed $3 trillion Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act was immediately written off by Republican lawmakers. However, experts say the allocation for the industry is in line with what colleges need to weather the economic crisis.
The Washington Post reports that more students are considering taking a gap year, rather than starting college virtually. However, the pandemic is also upending gap year programs, which typically include travel, volunteer work, paid work, and some career exploration. This year, international travel and hands-on volunteer work seem unlikely, and jobs are harder to find than ever, said Emmi Harward, executive director of the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools.
According to a campus-wide survey by the Princeton University Undergraduate Student Government (USG), 63.4 percent of undergraduate student respondents said they would seriously consider taking a leave of absence or a gap year if the fall semester were held remotely and online. The Dean of the College Jill Dolan confirmed in early May that the University could not guarantee immediate return to students who take gap years this fall.
Congress set aside more than $14 billion to help colleges and universities weather the outbreak. NPR explains where most of that money has gone and why many colleges are holding out for more. Most of the money, $12.5 billion, was designed to be the main vehicle for getting funds directly to colleges and students. The Department of Education allocated this money to colleges using a formula that favors institutions serving full-time, low-income students. According to the department, it has distributed more than $10 billion to colleges so far. The CARES Act stipulates that schools have to give at least half of that money directly to students whose lives have been disrupted by the pandemic and are having financial difficulties.
The Dallas News follows the story of an SMU student who is struggling financially amid the changes from COVID-19. Her mother and father are both out of work due to the virus, and her campus job is currently their only source of income. It is barely enough to cover half of the rent at the motel where they are currently staying.
The Hechinger Report highlights one takeaway from the changes to college life this spring: “The powerful role incidental and impromptu interactions play in the college experience – and how hard it is to replace them.” According to the Hechinger Report, students have tried to replicate the campus experience with satellite dorms, downloaded apps like “Beer With Me,” planned Zoom parties, trivia nights and club meetings. Social distancing has shown many how small experiences on campus shape what it feels like and means to be a college student.
