Will 10,000 students balk at paying for online schooling?
Enrolment models suggest many college, university students may wait for campuses to reopen
— Projections by two universities suggest 10,000 or more students may delay their studies and withhold tuition because they are unable or unwilling to be schooled online in September.
Also, thousands of community college students may not enrol after campuses shuttered most classrooms through the fall term to help limit the spread of COVID-19.
This may not happen but if it does, post-secondary planners estimate tuition shortfalls could help strip $236 million out of operating budgets collectively valued at almost $1.5 billion.
“To me this is an unprecedented disruption,” said James Rush, vice-president for academic affairs at the University of Waterloo.
He cautions that enrolment projections are “guesses or predictions based on some factors that may or may not come to pass, and are evolving.”
Two Waterloo universities announced this week that 12,907 incoming students have accepted offers to launch their studies in September. These new students and others in upper years now have three months to firm up school plans amid unprecedented uncertainty.
“Literally this is going to come down to thousands of individual choices by students and their families about what’s best,” Rush said.
He figures students will weigh how they feel
about remote learning, the state of their finances, health and disease concerns, other opportunities, and travel restrictions.
By September students could seek to defer enrolment, interrupt their studies, or enrol and then withdraw before full tuition is due.
Wilfrid Laurier University projects up to 2,030 undergraduate students may not enrol if classrooms stay closed for the fall term only. This estimate includes 781 incoming students and 1,249 returning students.
Add missing graduate students and the school could lose up to $29 million in tuition under this scenario.
Lost tuition could swell to $56 million if classrooms stay closed through next April and 3,971 undergraduates stay away, along with missing graduate students.
That’s a range of between one in eight and one in four undergraduates choosing not to enrol.
“Our scenarios are based on projected enrolments predicated on how we believe students might respond to learning in a virtual or online mode,” Maureen Mancuso, interim vice-president for academics, told the Laurier board of governors Tuesday.
“We’re mindful that there are significant institutional risks that are presented by this crisis. We feel that to ignore them for sure would be perilous, but so would be overreacting to them.”
Laurier is monitoring student behaviour and aims to “do everything we can to maximize the number of students who continue their studies in the fall,” Mancuso told The Record.
If thousands choose not to enrol, Laurier expects to respond with freezes on spending, hiring and travel.
The school wants to retain talent and minimize impacts on people during a temporary financial setback, Tony Araujo, acting vice-president of finance, told governors. Laurier expects enrolment to rebound as the pandemic ends or eases.
The University of Waterloo ran one scenario that points to almost 6,700 students choosing not to enrol, almost one out of five at the school. This estimate mixes 5,900 undergraduates and 800 graduate students.
The university ran a different scenario that points to almost 8,600 students choosing not to enrol, including 7,300 undergraduates.
Planners warn of a potential budget hit that could reach $115 million, mostly due to lost tuition.
The school has laid off about 100 seasonal workers but is not revealing other steps it might take to manage such a financial crunch.
“Our position is to be constantly monitoring that, not making decisions now based on things that may or may not come to be,” Rush said.
Conestoga College expects enrolment to fall by thousands after seeing 1,000 fewer students in its online spring semester. It sees the pandemic as the greatest challenge it has ever faced.
Projecting a $65-million shortfall, the college has responded by investing more in online learning, by enticing employees into early retirement, by laying off more than 160 support staff, and by putting building projects on hold.
President John Tibbits expects pandemic impacts will endure for up to two years due to disease fears, travel restrictions, and global economic collapse. He warns that public funding may be constrained after the pandemic ends.
“The college has a responsibility to take decisive action and adapt in order to remain viable,” he said Wednesday in a statement.
Dire enrolment scenarios that schools are modelling anticipate that foreign students are least likely to enrol. Decisions made by 21,000 foreign students will be the top financial risk facing schools in September.
Foreign students are charged three to four times more for tuition. They have bigger education dollars at stake. They face COVID-related travel restrictions.
Their decisions are critical to post-secondary finances because although they account for just under one-third of collective enrolment, they pay more than half of all tuition collected.
Conestoga faces the greatest international risk. More than half its students come from abroad. Laurier is least exposed as only one in 14 of its students comes from abroad. One in four UW students is from abroad.
Typical annual tuition and fees range from $4,200 for a domestic business student enrolled at Conestoga to $36,700 for a foreign science student enrolled at the University of Waterloo.
Enrolment scenarios deployed by the universities assume that pandemic impacts might persuade 10 to 25 per cent of domestic students against enrolling, while persuading 25 to 95 per cent of international students against enrolling.
Scenarios vary based on the length of campus closure, if students are new or returning, and if they possess an undergraduate degree.
Governments have taken steps to help campuses respond to pandemic impacts.
Foreign students can now enrol in September and study online from their home country in the fall term without jeopardizing postgraduate work permits. Many foreign students covet work permits as a path to immigration.
Recognizing pandemic priorities, Ontario has delayed a new financial arrangement that ties public funding for universities to performance benchmarks.