Posted on by Chad Young

Can Colleges Survive COVID-19?

By Sean Slone, CSG senior policy analyst

There is growing concern for the future of higher education in the U.S. as the coronavirus pandemic has forced colleges and universities to shut down campuses this spring, move classes online, consider cutting staff and, in some cases, suspending admissions. With many states expected to have to cut budgets in the months and years ahead and with a return to campus this fall far from a sure thing, some are suggesting many institutions may not survive. But the pandemic is just one factor hastening a trend of the last few years.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 218 U.S. higher education institutions closed in 2018, impacting some 100,000 enrolled students. The Bipartisan Policy Center notes that many of the high-profile closures in recent years have occurred at large for-profit college chains but many small, private nonprofit colleges have also felt the squeeze. Lower enrollments due to changing demographics and a decrease in the number of international students — something that coronavirus travel restrictions seems likely to intensify — were projected to drive increases in the closure rate even before the pandemic.

At the same time, skyrocketing tuition and student debt have prompted many to question the cost and value of a college education in recent years, as The New York Times noted recently. Just before the full scope of the pandemic’s effects were becoming clear in mid-March, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the outlook for higher education from stable to negative.

As Governing noted recently, institutions are feeling the squeeze this year because the coronavirus has shut down nearly all the major revenue sources they survive on—tuition, room and board, activity fees, charitable giving. The problems at already struggling campuses could get much worse if they aren’t able to open up in the fall and if, as expected, financially strapped state governments enact substantial cuts down the road. State college systems in states like Vermont and Pennsylvania have already suggested the worst case scenario of permanent closures.

But even the wealthiest Ivy League institutions like Harvard and Princeton have been forced to announce hiring freezes, layoffs, pay cuts and other spending reductions, Governing noted. Getting help from the federal government could be problematic for them too. Harvard was forced to reject $8.7 million in federal emergency funding it was eligible for based on its number of poorer students after the school came in for criticism from President Trump. Princeton said it wouldn’t accept $2.4 million, according to Politico. Both institutions have multi-billion-dollar endowments. Stanford, Yale, Penn and Duke have also decided to reject stimulus funding. The U.S. Department of Education reported that as of April 27, $2 billion in stimulus funding had been awarded to 856 colleges or universities, which in turn are responsible for distributing money to students. More than half of all colleges and universities that were allocated money had submitted paperwork to access the funding. Another 632 colleges had applied for a portion of another $6 billion in the stimulus allocated for institutional costs associated with the coronavirus, according to Politico.

The fiscal losses and other impacts of the pandemic will affect every size higher education institution in the country, Dominique Baker, a professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University, told NPR recently.

“For some colleges, this is an existential threat that means they’ll have to close,” she said.

Baker is most concerned for the already underfunded institutions that serve vulnerable populations in some of the nation’s more remote and rural places and provide a beacon of light to people in those communities.

If Campuses Reopen, Will Students Return?

Complicating matters for colleges and universities is the continuing uncertainty produced by the coronavirus. That uncertainty may be prompting many students to consider other plans for the fall.

According to a survey commissioned by the American Council on Education and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, nearly one in five currently enrolled U.S. college students of more than 2,000 surveyed said they were either uncertain about plans to re-enroll in the fall or planned not to go back.

Steven Mintz, a senior adviser to the president of Hunter College in New York, thinks we may have seen the end of college as we knew it and the forced transition to a different kind of model may prove more difficult for some than others.

“Suddenly, a system optimized for one environment looks potentially problematic in a drastically altered context,” Mintz writes in a recent op-ed for Inside Higher Ed. “A model that depended on housing students in large dormitories, feeding students in large dining facilities, educating a significant fraction of students in large lecture halls and entertaining students in large gyms and arenas looks less desirable in an era of social distancing.”

Mintz believes that until researchers develop a coronavirus vaccine or effective treatments or until herd immunity is achieved, institutions could have a big problem.

“The end of college as we know it no longer seems like a pipe dream or a nightmare — but a looming possibility,” he writes. “The vibrancy, energy, campus spirit, the dynamism of the face-to-face classroom and, yes, much of the collegiality of college life are threatened and aren’t readily replaced electronically.”

Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician at Yale University who is studying how the coronavirus spreads, agrees.

“I don’t think there’s any scenario under which it’s business as usual on American college campuses in the fall,” he told NPR. “This idea — that we can somehow just get back to normal and go back to school in the fall, because we always have, it’s not reasonable, actually. I think we’re going to have to figure out other ways of doing this.”

As The New York Times reported recently, students may take some convincing that online classes and the loss of campus life are worth the cost. Students at the University of Chicago and Iowa State petitioned the schools to cut tuition by as much as 50 percent for as long as the pandemic lasts, something institutions have resisted.

But if students see the potential for a learning environment they don’t like in the fall, many could decide to opt out.

“If we’re looking at remote learning in the fall, I think it’s more likely students will take a gap year or semester, and that will have a different impact on revenue,” Hampshire College President Ed Wingenbach told the Times.

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