Colleges wondering if students will return
For years, Claire McCarville dreamed of going to college in New York or Los Angeles, and she was thrilled last month to get accepted to selective schools in both places. But earlier this month, she sent a $300 deposit to Arizona State University, a 15-minute drive from her home in Phoenix.
“It made more sense,” she said, “in light of the virus.”
Across the country, students such as McCarville are rethinking their choices in a world altered by the pandemic. And universities, concerned about the potential for shrinking enrollment and lost revenue, are making a wave of decisions in response that could profoundly alter the landscape of higher education for years to come.
Lucrative spring sports seasons have been canceled, room and board payments have been refunded, and students at some schools are demanding hefty tuition discounts for what they see as a lost spring term. Other revenue sources such as study abroad programs and campus bookstores have dried up, and federal research funding is threatened.
Already, colleges have seen their endowments weakened and worry that fundraising efforts will founder even as many families need more financial aid.
Some institutions are projecting $100 million losses for the spring, and many are bracing for an even bigger financial hit in the fall, when some are planning for the possibility of having to continue remote classes.
Administrators anticipate that students grappling with the financial and psychological impacts of the virus could choose to stay closer to home, go to less expensive schools, take a year off, or not go to college at all. A higher education trade group has predicted a 15 percent drop in enrollment nationwide, amounting to a $23 billion revenue loss.
“The combination of fear for health and safety and the economic impact at the same time is one that I haven’t experienced, and I don’t think most university leaders have,” said Kent Syverud, the chancellor of Syracuse University.
There are some 4,000 two-year and four-year public and private colleges and universities in the United States, educating roughly 20 million students. They generated about $650 billion in revenues in 2016-17, and in some states, such as California, Iowa and Maryland, they are the largest employers, according to the American Council on Education, a trade group.
The council predicted in an April 9 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that college enrollment for the next academic year would drop by 15 percent, including 25 percent for international students from countries like China who often pay full tuition, helping universities meet their budgets and afford financial aid for Americans.
“The pandemic is striking during the height of the admissions process,” the letter said. “College and university leaders are fully expecting significant, potentially unparalleled, declines in enrollment, both from students who do not come back, and those who will never start.”