The Future of College Post COVID-19
With the COVID-19 epidemic, colloquially known as the “coronavirus” shutting down air travel, businesses small and large, public areas of gathering, and centers of education altogether, the whole world is at a standstill and we are in the midst of a radical new paradigm shift.
The virus seems to be at its most apt description a more severe version of the seasonal flu (“influenza”.) But from what anyone can remember, the flu has never lead to people in the world being scared and discombobulated like this; even the Ebola outbreak didn’t seem to stretch that far out of it’s wild origins in West Africa.
We’ve all seen the hysteria and panic normalized over making sure everyone is wearing their masks, has enough toilet paper, buys enough groceries and maintains the utmost hygiene by any means necessary.
From President Trump suggesting that disinfectant products are a good safety measure to boost people’s immunity (unlike something simpler like multivitamins) to “Karen”, Becky’s more irritating alter-ego, this pandemic has opened the floodgates for an explosion of new memes, cultural highlights and memetic quips galore.
A lot of it is too much to keep track of; that’s just a feature of the society we live in. But with the advent of social media, it’s just the default response for people to seek entertainment and humor out of stressful circumstances.
The one phrase that sums up where the whole world is at, Orwellian in nature and connotation is “social distancing”.
It’s an eerie and strange term; a term that easily fits into the winding prose of any iconic sci-fi/dystopian novel of the last century. It’s a necessary condition put in place to manage the spread of the virus, but human beings can only be so distant before other dangerous health concerns arise.
Assessing the broader scope of the implications at stakes here, there are a lot of moving parts intertwined and interconnected that are in shambles now. The big picture is more than just the thousands of people who have been hospitalized, who’ve died, whose family members will never see again.
That’s tragic and devastating enough. The larger impact only gets more petrifying by the minute.
On May 6, the U.S. Department of Labor announced official numbers on the economic turmoil the COVID-19 epidemic has caused. Around 23 million Americans became unemployed in April, and another 6.6 million “left the workforce altogether.”
The unemployment rate skyrocketed to just about 15%. All the data and metrics calculated, and available show a situation that as grave as the Great Depression.
Many small businesses are on their deathbed, desperately seeking a lifeline. Both sides of Congress last month passed legislation to open the gates for much-needed relief aid as most Americans received a $1200 dollar stimulus check, especially in the form of the Paycheck Protection Program, designed to help struggling small businesses.
Due to “unforeseeable” favoritism prioritizing businesses that have no right being classified as “small”, the PPP recently went bankrupt, and many small businesses were left to bite the dust.
Some companies who are holding steady financially, like Shake Shack rightfully returned the loans they didn’t need that others could certainly benefit from.
Small businesses aren’t the only semi-casualty that have been blown up during these profoundly disturbing times.
The same can be said for young people in school, with emphasis on post-secondary education.
I’ve said this before, and I will assuredly say this again:
College, if anything, is a business more than it’s ever an institution of learning (at least for the last couple of decades.)
Students paying their tuition on time, alongside massive endowments and donations from alumni keeps classrooms opened. Let’s also not forget about the multitude of extraneous luxuries that are wrapped into the packaged deal of the “college experience”, including the revenue generated from the sports teams and all the recreational activities provided.
Most colleges don’t operate year-round on four quarters since there are seasonal breaks and the majority of students do not want to be taking classes in the summer when sunny weather is calling their name.
Due to a milieu of factors, many mid-sized and small colleges (esp. liberal arts-designated colleges) plus private and for-profit colleges have been trying to keep up financially over the last couple of years. Many have had to either be restructured, absorbed into larger colleges, or outright shut down, like GaryVee’s alma mater Mount Ida College.
And if colleges don’t have a full incoming class consistently coming in, then the only two feet they really have to stand on is the brand equity built from being prestigious like the Ivy League schools have.
From the New York Times article, “As Students Put Off College, Anxious Universities Tap Wait Lists”, the president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, Jayne Fonash admits that certain colleges are now considering “poaching” accepted students from one another.
Make of that what you will, and should.
To mitigate the massive financial losses many colleges across America are suffering with, Congress passed the CARES Act, which provided much-need aid. But a stipulation written into the act in relation to higher education requires that at least half of the money colleges receive be given to students in the form of emergency aid grants. Students who receive grants must fit a specific criteria.
Students, whether they’re in college or not have been some of the most devastated members of the populace hit hard by the catastrophic effects the COVID-19 pandemic has had on people.
Not being in the classroom can and will be a detriment to the 50+ million students who will have to transition into remote learning being out of the classroom. The proper resources and support they need to learn, including Internet access will be limited as well.
Schoolchildren in a lower socioeconomic bracket are most at-risk to not have Internet access. If a child is in this position, that means their education could be on hold indefinitely right now. Their parents may be supervising them to the best of their ability, but holding class over Zoom or Google Hangouts can only generate so much engagement. The social interaction that comes from being at a physical location to learn cannot be substituted.
This pandemic has really brought to the light the ample and understated inequality that lies in the education system. Some students are in more than just between a rock and a hard place.
Students in college who are paying for it themselves, taking out loans and even working a job or two are left stranded in a desert, wondering if land or water is anywhere close by. Their futures are in jeopardy, one way or another, and many of them don’t know what to do.
They’re like everyone else. They don’t know when this epidemic will be over, and if things will go back to “normal” afterwards.
Colleges all across America have had to institute hiring freezes, layoffs, furlough workers and consolidating roles in their respective admirations, in addition to obviously closing down campus. International students who have tricky visa situations or can’t afford a flight back to their native country in many cases have been granted permission to stay and live on campus.
To ensure confidence to the millions of middle-class families and students who still believe that a college degree and a college education is the way out, several colleges has publicly shared definitive plans to reopen campus in the upcoming class semester.
That re-assurance doesn’t take into account whether or not the “quarantine” in most places will be lifted by then, or if the perfect vaccine will be found by then.
It’s not ideal, especially if colleges are strapped for cash, but delaying the upcoming the semester, or transitioning classes into a remote setting, to a mild or full extent seem more and more like destined options.
Countless students are now in a tough position where they have even to contemplate the options of taking a gap year, or foregoing college altogether. Remote learning is a mildly feasible route to go. the social interaction that comes from being at a physical location to learn cannot be substituted.
Social interaction and learning how to talk to other people, relate to them and bond with them is honestly the greatest benefit any child gets out of public education. It’s a subjective stance to hold whether or not the actual material taught to students in college and the K-12 system is of any merit.
You can read more about my position on that here.
The opportunities college unlocks is one thing. The additional perks offered, like complete independence away from home and being able to push the limits of their hormonal naivety and recklessness (as depicted in something like the American Pie films) create a Christmas gift one has to unwrap and divulge into.
Going to college is first and foremost is about excelling academically and engaging in networking. But the fun and games thrown into the hat seal the deal. Young people naturally see it as all fun and games until something like this pandemic rattles the “globe”; their world is upended, society is upended and new lines will be drawn.
Large conglomerates in industries and sectors decimated by this epidemic are facing the potential outcome of bankruptcy, and going under due to a variety of factors (excessive debt, insufficient credit, lack of cash reserves, poor long-term planning, not adapting to the new consumer landscape the Internet has built, etc.) J. Crew was the first of many to come.
In comparison to colleges being forced to make the same tough decisions, it’s an precisely equal analogy. If there is a mass onslaught of colleges that are forced to shut down, that’s how things should be.
Since universities, for-profit or not act like corporations, they don’t deserve “bailouts”. They should dissolve and crumble.
Yes, education is important. This pandemic won’t wipe college as an institution off the face of the Earth. But that shouldn’t stop universities everywhere to be encouraged to reconfigure the models they operate on, and find a new strategy to go about business on for the future.
It shouldn’t have to be highlighted how the Internet in some aspects has made the traditional model of education obsolete in the 21st century. Websites like YouTube, Masterclass, etc. allow people to learn any subject or skill that they would like to get better at, for a fraction of the cost.
It’s unsure if after this quarantine is completely lifted, and the politicians, the experts in the medical establishment and pundits in the media declare this epidemic to be over, that list of companies will grow.
According to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, forty-six percent of Americans say their household has experienced some form of income loss from layoffs, reduced hours, unpaid leave or salary reductions. Seventy-eighth percent of them expect though that they will return to their jobs soon after the epidemic concludes.
Either way, there will be a contraction in the economy. College graduates from the Class of 2020 and even those previously employed who were transitioning out of their current career are going to have to fight and claw to secure stable employment.
Factor in all the white-collar workers who were stunned by the fact that they were in the blink of an eye staying at home, laid off from their jobs and now the inequality in the job market might truly start to show it’s colors.
In the midst of the cycle of an election year, the whole social and political order has been thrown into the incinerator.
New territory is being mapped out. If colleges and universities everywhere want to ensure that their reputation remain intact, they are going to have to adapt to the “new normal.”
One way or another, they’re going to have to “take notes” out of the playbook of companies like Amazon, Walmart, etc. Colleges are like corporations, even if their number one priority is and should be to serve the benefit and well-being of the students attending.
The “too big to fail” theory is null and void here. If colleges are too big to fail, pandemic or not, then they are too big to exist in the first place.
ADDITIONIAL LINKS:
I am Justin Cole, a young, passionate writer from New York City. Even as we ride out the latter half of this curve, and the epidemic can cease to exist in the next couple of months, please continue to stay safe and stay informed.
Please check out my other articles here if you so may. Take care.
