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Pinterist
Higher Ed Dive
5 higher education trends to watch in 2021
Enrollment changes, a return to campus, the future of admissions testing and more stories we'll be following this year.
Hallie Busta
Jan. 3, 2021
We're all hoping some degree of pre-pandemic life will return in 2021.
But for higher education, many of the trends that dominated storylines
in 2020 will continue into this year. We've rounded up a few below and
will be following them throughout the year.
Will enrollment bounce back?
Colleges collectively enrolled about 560,000 fewer undergraduates this
fall, a 3.6% decrease from a year ago. The losses were much steeper at
community colleges and among first-time students. While the pandemic
hasn't been found to have had a negative effect on overall high school
graduation rates, low-income schools and those with high shares of
Black and Hispanic students sent far fewer graduates to college this
fall. The number of international students at U.S. colleges also tanked.
What's next? Enrollment experts predict the impact of the losses will
reverberate, and they are watching whether more displaced workers will
show up at colleges in 2021. But college applications and federal
financial aid requests for fall 2021 were lagging where they were a
year ago as of early December, according to national data, suggesting
lower enrollment levels may continue.
What will the Biden administration's higher ed priorities be?
President-elect Joe Biden has promised to make community college — and,
for some students, a four-year degree from a public institution —
tuition-free. He has also said he'd invest heavily in minority-serving
institutions and toughen restrictions on for-profit colleges. Other
items on his campaign platform include doubling the Pell Grant and
devising a new way to fund colleges that educate high shares of
low-income students.
What's next? Biden is selecting his leadership team. He recently
announced Miguel Cardona as his pick for Education Secretary, a
decision the U.S. Senate must confirm. Cardona comes from a K-12
background, but yet-to-be-announced deputy appointees will help guide
the department's higher ed policy.
Can colleges bring more students back to campus?
Public health experts are hopeful the availability of coronavirus
vaccines means reopening campuses is on the horizon, they told Higher
Ed Dive in December. But continued testing for the virus will be
critical, and many colleges bringing students to campus this spring say
they're ramping up those efforts.
What's next? It's too soon to ditch the facemasks. The U.S. is only in
the early stages of vaccine distribution, so COVID-19 safety measures
will be necessary for some time, experts said. Vaccines are expected to
be widely available by mid-year, but recent polls found that only
around 60% of people would get the shots. Scientists are also still
researching how contagious vaccinated people are when they contract the
virus.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, said in late December that he is "cautiously
optimistic" college campuses will be able to reopen this fall.
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