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Hannah Gaber, USAT
USA Today
Amid coronavirus layoffs, high school seniors are too uncertain to commit to a college
Chris Quintana
First, coronavirus canceled spring break. Then it was graduation.
College Decision Day, an already decaying tradition of declaring one’s
intent to attend a particular school, may be next.
Many colleges, desperate for tuition money during the pandemic, have
rolled back the traditional May 1 deadline to June 1. That allows
families to weigh new financial concerns and get a sense of how the
nation is recovering from the virus.
Amid economic uncertainty and stunning job losses, some colleges are
likely to welcome students of varying qualifications no matter when
they decide to commit. Which means it will take months for colleges to
know who their students will be, and whether the schools will be able
to make ends meet on the tuition revenue they'll get.
In fact, some colleges may not know for certain until they see who shows up on campus or logs on for their first online class.
The Bowdoin College campus was nearly empty during spring break on
March 11, 2020, in Brunswick, Maine. Many campuses have sent students
home for the spring semester. May 1 is traditionally when many incoming
first-year students commit for the fall semester.
Already, large segments of college-going students are reconsidering their plans, recent polls have shown.
Roughly 11% of students surveyed by the Strada Education Network said
they had canceled their education plans since the coronavirus outbreak.
Those who do plan to further their education are considering
certificate programs or courses related to in-demand jobs instead of
traditional degrees, according to the education nonprofit's ongoing
poll of more than 5,000 people.
In another survey, which was administered last week, 40% of prospective
students had yet to submit a deposit to any college. That’s
significantly larger than expected at this time of year, said Craig
Goebel, a principal with the Art & Science Group, a higher
education consulting firm, which surveyed 1,171 students.
Plus, about 12% of those who had put down a deposit, telling colleges
"yes," had said they had since changed their mind about attending a
four-year college.
A major reason for students' uncertainty about college: About half say
their family members' employment status changed as a result of the
pandemic, according to the Art & Science Group's survey. (A
recently released NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll also found that 50% of
Americans had personally been financially impacted by the coronavirus.)
Jordynn Collie knows that reality firsthand. Since she was in eighth
grade, Collie, 17, had wanted to attend Pennsylvania State University.
She told USA TODAY she was excited about the university’s alumni
network and the chance to do undergraduate research.
The university had accepted her, and she was ready to attend. Then the coronavirus outbreak happened.
Her mom was put on furlough back in March, and she won't be able to
return to work until July. Even then, it's expected to be for reduced
pay.
Out-of-state tuition is no longer an option for Collie. She is now
looking at Virginia Commonwealth University or the nearby community
college, Northern Virginia Community College. Both have in-state
tuition options for the Alexandria, Virginia, teen.
“For me to go to college now, I just need to make sure it’s affordable,” she said.
This year, a student's deposit was already less of an assurance she or
he would attend that college. That’s partially due to an antitrust
investigation by the Department of Justice into a trade group that
governs ethical admissions practices among colleges. The gist of the
government settlement with the National Association of College
Admissions Counseling: Colleges are now allowed to recruit students
from universities they had already committed to.
“Universities are aware a lot of them aren’t going to find out whether
a student is planning to attend post-deposit until they show up at
school or have to make their first tuition payment,” Goebel said.
Enrollment deposits tend to be a few hundred dollars. Losing a deposit
to change your mind about your school doesn't matter much when tens of
thousands of dollars in tuition and room and board are on the line.
Students who have yet to make a deposit, Goebel said, tend to express
more doubt about campuses being open in the fall. They have lower ACT
or SAT test scores, their families earn less, and they’re more likely
to be first-generation students.
Those who do put down a deposit likely expect to pay less if the
coronavirus forces classes online again. About 70% of students would
expect to pay less for a semester of digital classes than what they
would for one offering face-to-face classes, according to the Art &
Science poll.(College officials have said it has actually cost them
more money to pivot to online classes without much warning while still
paying the wages of faculty members.)
Even if campuses reopen, colleges may take an extra financial hit. To
Goebel and others, it’s clear colleges will have to provide some
incentive, likely financial, to entice students to return back to
campus amid a pandemic and a recession. That may mean lowering tuition
rates or offering more financial aid.
Davidson College, a highly selective private institution in North
Carolina, announced last month that all its students would be able to
defer their payment for the fall semester until July 2021. Lee College,
a community college in Texas, offered to waive tuition for the summer
semester for local high schoolers and returning students. And
Franciscan University, a private Catholic college in Ohio, said it
would cover the tuition of its students for the fall after scholarships
and grants had been applied.
Students choosing campuses sight unseen
About a month ago, Sai Sagireddy, an 18-year-old in Trinidad and
Tobago, posted on Reddit about his hope that colleges would widely push
back on the May 1 decision day.
But of the two universities he had been considering, Baylor University
and George Washington, only Baylor extended its deadline. (George
Washington did say it would work "with admitted students on a
case-by-case basis.")
A delayed deadline to choose a college, Sagireddy told USA TODAY, would
have given him some time potentially to visit campuses over the summer.
And it might have meant, he said, an opportunity to further negotiate
with financial aid departments. (One college, Sagireddy said, didn't
respond to him for two weeks until he called and followed up with them.)
Instead, he'll have to choose his future campus sight unseen. He said
he is especially regretting taking a gap year after finishing his high
school studies. Had he know coronavirus would be a concern, he would
have started college immediately.
At least two online petitions popped up in mid-March urging
universities to reconsider their deadlines. The creator of one of those
petitions, 18-year-old Charlie Lockyer, of Owings Mill, Maryland, said
his hope was to give students more time to make a monumental decision.
He has since made up his mind about college – he plans to attend Rice
in Texas.But he said it would have been helpful to visit a few more
campuses. His biggest concern now, he said, is if classes will be
in-person during the fall. If they're online, he plans to take a gap
year.
"I can't justify spending that much money to sit in my basement doing assignments on my computer," he said.
New students and their parents walk outside Lovett Hall during an
orientation tour on the campus of Rice University in Houston in this
2009 file photo. Mainstays like orientation are in doubt as colleges
across the country try to figure out if it is safe to have in-person
classes this fall.
'A bajillion-and-a-half caveats'
Another challenge has muddied the decision process for college-bound
students and their parents. While universities were mostly aligned in
their response to the coronavirus in the spring, they may take
different paths on whether to reopen campuses this fall.
So far, said Chris Marsicano, a visiting education professor at
Davidson, colleges have had a uniform response despite
differences in institutions' size.
“Uncertainty breeds imitation,” he said. “When it’s unclear how to
respond to a particular crisis, institutions that spend a lot of time
with each other will look to each other for guidance.”
Now as the months drag on, and some states appear to be lifting social
distancing orders, higher education institutions are already splitting
on what their response should be.
Some, like Purdue University, have drawn attention for their attempts
to restart the fall semester with as little interruption as possible.
Others, like San Jose State, are already planning for another semester
of online classes, ditching some hallmarks of a university education
like lecture halls crammed with hundreds of students.
Marsicano, though, urged caution in judging universities' current
plans.For some institutions, he said, making an announcement they plan
to be open in the fall could be a way to shore up the incoming class.
Some that hadn’t pushed back that May 1 deadline, he said, may later do
so. And even those suggesting they'll have to resort to online-only
courses can’t be sure what’s going to happen.
Colleges' announcements about their plans have included "a bajillion-and-a-half caveats," he said.
Even though there is more uncertainty for what the fall semester will
bring, some colleges are already starting to follow each other’s
examples.
Beloit College in Wisconsin, for example, announced last month it would
offer shorter but more intense classes in an effort to be more flexible
in switching from online to face-to-face classes if need be.
By April 20, Centre College in Kentucky had announced similar block
scheduling. And after Purdue announced its plans to reopen, several
large public university systems, including the University of North
Carolina system, the University of Texas system and Texas A&M made
similar comments about their campuses reopening in the fall, albeit
while recognizing factors like coronavirus outbreaks, a lack of testing
and local government restrictions may limit their ability to operate
normally. They have also suggested classes might be smaller or the
dorms might be more sparsely populated.
So what should families and students do in these uncertain times?
Marsicano suggested that they continue to apply for the school they
think is best for them, regardless of the pandemic.
"Once you're in the door at the place you want to be, it becomes a lot harder to leave," he said.
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