Published by Forbes
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If change breeds illness, might it also be true that illness breeds change? This is the thesis of a recent report chronicling the challenges faced by American higher education due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. It comes from a national survey conducted by Art & Science Group, a Baltimore-based consulting firm. It finds that students are focusing keenly on the pandemic and its effects. Fully 90 percent of respondents said they seek out news about the pandemic at least daily.
And they are not merely monitoring passively the course of developments. One of the striking changes in students’ attitudes found by the survey is this: One in six college-bound respondents to the survey “appear to be near the point of giving up on the idea of attending a 4-year college or university as a full time student in the fall.” Add to this the fact that the survey found that “an additional two-thirds of graduating seniors” worry that the pandemic will compel them “to change their first-choice school” to one that is “likely to be less expensive, closer to home, and more familiar to them.”
Equally striking—and perhaps another sign of higher education’s future—the survey found that 44% of the students surveyed stated that they were “potentially more interested in taking an online course as part of their post-secondary educational experience.”
If these trends bear out—something none of us can know with certitude at this early time—the consequences for traditional higher education could be profound. A sizable contingent of students would now be intent on obtaining an education that is less expensive, more local, more convenient, and with increased online delivery.
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