AN EMPTINESS WITHIN
Students long for social contact as shift to online courses turns campuses into ghost towns
Foreign students are long gone and thousands of courses have moved online, turning post-secondary schools including Simon Fraser University into ghost towns. Students long for social contact, cheating is rampant, and the situation is a financial disaster for the schools, surrounding communities, and for the national economy.
“I'm a very social being. So it kind of hurts my soul.”
Nicholas Seguin, a 19-year-old Capilano University theatre student, is talking about the COVID-19 pandemic as he sits in the virtually empty, mostly shuttered, main cafeteria of the evergreen-surrounded North Vancouver campus, catching up with classmate Melissa Morton, 22.
What's it like on a campus described as a “ghost town?”
These theatre students are relatively lucky, since at least they don't have to earn their pandemic-plagued degree entirely staring into a computer screen. Sometimes Seguin and Morton are able to wear see-through face shields to act and sing in front of their profs.
“There's a different kind of stress that comes through isolation, though.” said Seguin. “There's a tendency to burn out faster.”
Many students are also being forced to confront uncertain careers — including the theatrical prospect that, even though the movie industry could continue, “stage might not survive this pandemic.”
Capilano University presents a microcosm of post-secondary education in Metro Vancouver and Canada, where more than two million mostly young people are struggling to make sense of their social lives, harder-to-find jobs and futures.
SFU students Aliya Boulanger and UBC Okanagan student Lachlan Williams recognize most educators are doing their best, but that doesn't mean the young adults aren't disappointed with having to pay the same fees for fewer services, sometimes disorganized online classes and virtually no interaction with peers.
Few sectors have been thumped harder than higher education by COVID-19, with Statistics Canada reporting last week that Canada's 147 universities (not including colleges) could lose as much as $3.4 billion this year, mostly due to the plunge in foreign students, who last year numbered 642,000.
While kindergarten to Grade 12 schools, supermarkets and restaurants have for the most part found ways to bring together large groups of people, Canada's post-secondary institutions are choosing remote learning to reach their far-flung clients. Thousands of courses in Canada have gone entirely online — in part so they can offer the same programs to students wherever they're confined — in town, in another province or on the other side of the planet.
PANDEMIC HARMS
The impact of COVID-19 on the soul of academia has been high in at least five areas. That includes on university and college budgets, on mental health of students and staff, and on the quality of learning. The pandemic has also facilitated more online cheating and is producing novel techniques to combat it. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of foreign students have retreated to their homelands. And one in five domestic students told Stats Can they weren't going to re-enrol this year.
The wider community is being knocked off track, too. Buses on university and college feeder routes are running almost empty. Campus residences and nearby neighbourhoods suddenly have many rooms available for rent.
At Capilano University, enrolment has dropped nine per cent to 7,727 students from last year. Enrolment for domestic students is down by six per cent and for foreign students is off 13 per cent. Capilano now has 1,924 international students compared to 2,478 last fall, with most who remained enrolled taking courses online from afar.
Capilano's campus residence is accommodating only 135 students, less than half of last year's number, in part because sharing of rooms is not allowed. Almost miraculously — given that Capilano University in July projected expenditures would have to drop by more than 15 per cent — only five faculty and 10 staff have been laid off.
Across the country, the people who keep higher education churning are working almost entirely from their homes; scrambling to innovate, up their high-tech savvy and improvise on the fly.
So is Ottawa, which increasingly treats higher education as a big business, since it accounts for 2.4 per cent of national GDP. Various immigration ministers have called so-called international education an “export” that brings $22 billion a year into Canada's economy.
Last year, about one-in-four students at post-secondary institutions in Canada were on study visas, typically paying four to five times higher fees than their domestic counterparts. Statistics Can recently reported foreign students account for a whopping 40 per cent of all university fees. But their numbers are down. Canada's Immigration department has issued 58 per cent fewer study permits in 2020 than last year.
“Mostly the international students aren't coming. And those who are still enrolled are just online,” said Hartaj Wadh, a 21-yearold Capilano University business student from India. “They're saving on food and rent and travel.”
Canada's federal Liberals, unlike politicians in most English-speaking countries, have come up with many immigration perks to try to entice foreign students. Ottawa revealed this month it will make a special exemption to border safety rules and would allow foreign students to come to Canada in person, beginning Oct. 20.
Here's more on how the pandemic is colliding with five aspects of higher education:
REVENUE IS DEPRESSED
The budgets of Canada's universities, colleges and language schools are being pummelled. Uncertainty is prevalent, especially with a surprisingly big drop in revenue from such things as parking and campus housing.
While Capilano University officials predict a budget shortfall of $8.3 million for this fiscal year, such numbers pale in comparison to elsewhere. Australian universities have been warned up to 21,000 layoffs could be coming in the next six months as a result of overseas enrolment collapsing.
In Canada, the University of Ottawa, Mcgill in Montreal and the University of Alberta are among those significantly cutting back.
In July, UBC, Canada's second largest university with an operating budget of $2.9 billion, predicted a $225-million deficit.
UBC administrators believed in the summer there could be a $138-million drop in tuition fees for this school year — $61 million less from domestic students and $77 million less from international students.
But enrolment at UBC isn't turning down as badly as forecast. As of October, UBC'S website says student numbers are up 2.4 per cent from last fall — to 53,845 in total, 13,765 of whom are on study visas.
“Strong enrolment figures are expected to decrease the projected deficit detailed in the July 27 budget submission significantly. We'll be able to provide additional information, hopefully by the end of the month, on that front,” says UBC spokesman Matthew Ramsey.
Still, UBC'S main campus remains in virtual shutdown, with a few exceptions. And the pandemic is revealing how much the institution profits from its non-educational services. It expects to bring in $208 million less this school year from such things as housing, parking and conferences.
Still, Ramsay says there have been no layoffs at UBC due to COVID-19.
Much the same goes for Simon Fraser University. In the midst of all the COVID chaos, UBC and SFU have even slightly increased their fees. Specialists say such large institutions benefit from their international reputations.
In an Oct. 13 report, nevertheless, SFU predicted its revenue for this school year will drop to $776 million from the pre-pandemic expectation of $802 million.
SFU'S undergrad numbers are up 1.1 per cent from last fall to 25,700, with 21 per cent being foreign students compared to 20 per cent last year. SFU'S graduate student total has declined by 1.4 per cent to 4,762, mostly because of a drop in foreign students, who comprise 31 per cent of all those seeking its masters degrees and Phds.
Like UBC, SFU'S biggest drop in earnings, at $35 million, is coming from far fewer people paying to live in residence, attend conferences, park, eat, pay athletic fees or buy from the SFU bookstore.
Even though life isn't great for publicly subsidized universities, things are far grimmer at the country's many private language schools. Before the pandemic, these schools relied almost entirely on foreign students; 145,000 of them.
More than 23 language schools have already closed. The country's 197 remaining private language schools are desperate. They have grown accustomed to foreign students showing up each year to hand over large fees to learn English and French.
Languages Canada, an umbrella group, has warned that three out of four of its member schools are in danger of having to lock their doors by the end of this year.
Downtown Vancouver's decades-old Global Village has already shut.
That's why Gonzalo Peralta, head of Languages Canada, said Ottawa's recent decision to allow foreign students to re-enter the country “will be a lifeline.”
Still, given quarantines and physical distancing rules, it's not going to be easy to run a business. A former language school owner, Lorie Lee, says one Vancouver operator has told her B.C.'S Health Ministry will allow only five students in each class.
“Is this feasible?”
CHEATING ONLINE
UBC mathematics professor Elyse Yeager was appalled when she recently began giving a test to more than 1,000 first-year students and discovered that within half an hour virtually all the answers had been posted online by a large U.S. company called Chegg, which offers “homework help.”
Yeager's experience of students using third parties to cheat is anything but a one-off, as hundreds of thousands of North American courses, lectures — and exams — have gone online, to reach students studying and working from their various domestic settings.
Sarah Eaton, a University of Calgary associate professor and specialist in academic integrity, said: “Schools and colleagues of mine have been reporting consistently, not only in Canada but across the globe, that academic misconduct has skyrocketed.”
Exam writing has almost completely changed, says Aliyah Boulanger, a third-year biomedical student at SFU. For one exam, to discourage cheating, she says students were given only 45 seconds to answer a question, making it impossible to change one's mind or gain an overview of the exam.
Williams, a University of B.C. Okanagan fourth-year mechanical engineering student, says grades have suddenly shot up in his program as many students appear to take advantage of illicit resources such as Chegg.
“Some grades don't really seem meaningful any more.”
Since exams are no longer being held in physical halls, faculty are being squeezed to come up with novel ways to supervise students trying to grind their way through tests.
Cheating is made easier because since many exams are being held “asynchronously.” In other words, not everyone takes the exam at the same time. The idea is to make things equal for students regardless of their time zone, whether they're in South Korea or Halifax.
Williams says his fellow students recognize courses and exams have largely gone online, and often not in real time, to “serve the lowest common denominator — if one person can't do it in person, then no one can.” But he thinks there are ways educators could respond
more specifically to each student's situation.
Meanwhile, a revived jargon is developing around cheating. UBC has posted complex ethical procedures for dealing with “remote invigilation,” which often consists of supervising exam-writing students with cameras and open microphones.
Boulanger says it's just another thing increasing anxiety for students. One software program, Proctorio, “flags” students who simply look away from the computer screen or go to the washroom.
EDUCATIONAL ISOLATION
Gurleen Kaur, 19, misses playing badminton in the Capilano University gym and hanging out with friends at the campus Tim Hortons. Both are shut.
“The campus is dead.”
A lot of college and university students are struggling emotionally at a point in life when their age group, more than most, is desperate to connect, meet friends, date and soak up what the wide world has to offer.
A recent University of Toronto study of 800 students found many have been hurt by isolation. The researchers, whose study was published in September in Canadian Psychology, found many students were grappling with increasing stress, anxiety and depression.
“They were right in the midst of this developmental stage: connecting with others, meeting potential partners. It was shut down and that was tremendously impactful,” says Nancy Heath, a Mcgill University professor of counselling psychology who helped coordinate the study.
An irony in the U of T findings is that students who had no history of mental health problems reported greater psychological distress during the pandemic than peers who had existing emotional conditions. It was easier for those who had been struggling already, Heath said, because they were familiar with the feelings of isolation their peers were going through for the first time.
Even as colleges and universities are hastening to find ways to respond to sometimes higher anxiety, they're more limited in helping young people deal with isolation's effect on the learning experience.
SFU'S Boulanger, who lives in her parents' Coquitlam home, said it's almost impossible to study with others, or even discuss things together after an online class.
While UBC'S Williams, who lives with a roommate, said online courses aren't as bad as he thought they would be and he occasionally gets out to cycle with friends, he still lamented, “There is virtually no collaboration on projects or assignments. You basically no longer have educational discussions with your peers.”
Even though some faculty openly acknowledge the experience is not ideal, Boulanger pointed out they're still getting their full salaries, while students feel at higher risk of falling grade-point averages that will affect their futures.
FOREIGN STUDENTS
The U.S. and Australia, with COVID-19, are far less inclined than Canada to market their colleges and universities to foreign students.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, unlike Justin Trudeau, won't hand taxpayer benefits to international students. And Morrison has suggested those who can't finance their stays should “make their way home.”
Canada's Liberal government is going the opposite route. It's wooing young people ready to pay $20,000-$25,000 a year for the dream of studying in Canada. The latest is the decision to allow foreign students to enter the country as of Oct. 20.
Ottawa had already announced foreign students could apply for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit of $2,000 a month without providing proof of a work permit.
That was on top of easing policy to permit foreign students to complete 50 per cent of their overall studies outside Canada. Perhaps most importantly, Ottawa promised foreign students they'll still be able to get a postgraduate work permit for up to three years.
BUSES, APARTMENTS EERILY EMPTY
The effect of COVID-19 on higher education goes beyond campuses. Many Metro Vancouver buses and Skytrains, which used to overflow with young students, are running virtually empty.
The R5 bus that travels between downtown Vancouver and Simon Fraser University is operating at 30 per cent of normal weekday volume. Another commuter bus to SFU has just 10 per cent of its usual young passengers.
The empty seats provide a stark sign of just how much the entire city has been affected by the pandemic-induced lockdown of campuses.
The region's rental housing market has also been shaken.
At UBC, only 585 first-year students are renting rooms, just 19 per cent of full capacity. Overall room occupancy across the main campus is only 44 per cent. At the SFU hilltop, just under 700 students are living in residence this fall term, about 40 per cent of the usual.
Across Metro Vancouver, largely due to fewer foreign and domestic students, average rents have dropped by eight per cent. Thousands of dwellings filled by last year's student group are empty; a record number of investor-owned condo units in the downtown core, many of which used to have student tenants, have been listed for sale.
Clearly, the extraordinary pandemic pressures that are changing the world of higher education are affecting almost everyone.