Colleges hope for return to new normal
TOLEDO, OHIO » Colleges throughout the U.S. are assuring students that the fall semester will bring a return to in-person classes, intramural sports and mostly full dormitories. But those promises come with asterisks.
Administrators say how quickly campus life comes back will depend on the success of the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts and the ability to avoid widespread outbreaks.
Universities saw their budgets hammered during the coronavirus pandemic, which emptied dorms and led to declines in enrollment, and are facing pressure to reopen fully. A flood of announcements from schools describing their plans has begun as high school seniors and returning students are making decisions about where they will be next fall.
Some students are waiting to decide until they know what to expect on campus, and others are still worried about the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
Like many colleges, Ashland University in Ohio is seeing that freshmen who have been accepted are slower to enroll this year. To give them a push, the university is offering a semester of free tuition next spring for first-time students who come in the fall and promising no tuition increases over four years.
Many students are feeling “burned out” by a year of virtual classes and limited activities and asking themselves if they’re willing to invest in another year if virus protocols are still in place, said Carlos Campo, president of Ashland, which is planning for almost all classes to be in person and for clubs, intramurals and Greek life to resume normal activities.
“We owe it to students to let them know what’s coming,” he said.
Casey Knutson skipped spring semester after starting her first year of college at Ohio University taking classes on Zoom from home in Tiffin last fall. Her grades were good, but “I realized I wasn’t learning a single thing,” she said. “It wasn’t worth the money.”
She’s hopeful that she’ll be on campus next fall for a somewhat normal college experience.
“I really don’t want to be stuck in my hometown,” she said. “I think a lot of students feel like that.”
Ultimately, the course of the pandemic will determine what campuses look like in the fall, said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association of college and university presidents.
Schools have gotten a boost from about $80 billion in federal coronavirus relief to colleges, universities and students. But there have been serious effects from the pandemic, including roughly 650,000 layoffs out of 3 million campus employees, he said.