The College Apocalypse is Coming

Hundreds of schools will close during the pandemic.

Note: If you or someone you know is planning on going to college this fall, either in-person or some variation of remote learning, I would love to hear about what choice you made and why.

Introduction

With the academic year fast approaching, a big topic of conversation has been about if/when schools will reopen, and if/when parents will send their kids. Education has turned into a life or death decision. For colleges, it has also turned into a question of their very survival.

Prior to the pandemic and subsequent recession, the economy was actually doing pretty well. Stocks were rising. Wages were finally climbing. And life generally seemed to be looking up.

But colleges were fretting for several reasons.

1. A good economy.
2. Admissions changes.
3. Changing demographics.

Before we tread into those subjects, let’s review how colleges came to be.

The Rise (and Pending Fall) of Colleges

Looking back on the history of higher education, I’m always surprised that colleges and universities ever survived the invention of the printing press in 1440.

Higher education originated with young men listening to old men read (i.e. lecture, hence “lecture hall”) from a hand-written textbook, which had been painstakingly transcribed from a priceless original. Most education was oratory, with listening and memorization required skills for success.

When the printing press came along, all those textbooks could now be copied for a fraction of both the cost and time. It should have completely democratized and decentralized higher learning.

But it didn’t.

This research paper gives a wonderful dive into of how universities adapting to cheaper printing, but the gist is that higher education was able to survive by absorbing, analyzing, comparing, and synthesizing all the new information that was now readily available from the mass of printed books.

In short, they started focusing on research.

And this was all well and good for several centuries. In fact, there was a veritable explosion in higher education after World War II, especially in the United States, due to the passage of the G.I. Bill.

More people than ever wanted that precious degree, and colleges were eager to deliver. For the right price, of course. But all good things must come to and end, and higher ed is no different.

Before COVID struck, colleges were already facing a trifecta of headwinds.

Crumbling Return on Investment

It used to be that a college education meant a guaranteed life in the middle class. Higher, if you worked for it. It really didn’t make a difference what you majored in, just that you had a piece of paper stating that you spent four years learning; or at least learning how to learn.

And that was true for 50 years after the war. But things started to change. Word was out that a college degree punched your ticket to a good life, the government was lending out money left and right to anyone who wanted to attend college, and tuition rates were skyrocketing.

Before long, the financial benefit of a college degree wasn’t a guarantee. It was highly dependent upon what degree you got, what college you went to (along with their alumni network), and how little you borrowed.

All of a sudden, jobs that maybe didn’t look so great, like the military, trade school, or industries where certifications rule, were looking a lot better. And those jobs were more prevalent in the decade long bull market that was just exited earlier in 2020.

This by itself will not kill colleges, but it will decrease overall demand.

Poaching Season is Here

Deep in the labyrinth of national university discussion is a little-known group called the National Association for College Admission Counseling. They decide how colleges can recruit students, and, more importantly, how they cannot.

In fall of 2019, the NACAC decided to rescind three important recruiting rules. This decision (made under pressure by the Department of Justice). College recruiters can now target

1. Students attending other institutions
2. The previous year’s applicant or member of a prospect pool
3. Applicants who have committed to or submitted an enrollment deposit to another institution.

In short, recruiters can actively poach student from other universities. And that means that colleges with the most money to incentivize (a.k.a., buy) the student will win.

After NACAC changed its ethics code, many admissions and enrollment officials said they would be reluctant to adopt any of the once-prohibited practices. But things change.

“It seems safest to assume that adoption of more-aggressive recruitment tactics,” the report says, “will be rapid and widespread.”

Demographics are Destiny

In just about any macroeconomic analysis worth its salt, demographics are the prime mover. In the end, it is people who make decisions to buy or sell, so if the number and/or makeup of the people change, the combined makeup of the buying and selling changes. As acknowledged in the article,

U.S. demographics are also shifting. The number of high school graduates is flat — and in some cases declining — because of lower birth rates about 20 years ago. Those numbers are also projected to decline, so the trend of fewer students coming from high school isn’t going away anytime soon.

Colleges can now aggressively recruit an ever-shrinking pool of applicants, many of whom will decide to never attend college in the first place.

Not a good place to be.

And that’s just the start.

Here are some other articles describing the decline and death of higher education.

• 12 Trends Killing College
• Here’s How Higher Education Dies
• Why Are Small Private Colleges Across the Nation Dying?
• By 2030 over 50% of Colleges will Collapse

The (COVID) Nail in the Coffin

The pandemic is wreaking havoc with universities and has completely destroyed their finances, both private and public.

• Private universities reliant on tuition won’t have enough money if enrollment declines by 20%.
• Public universities funded by taxes won’t have enough money, since 46 states have a balanced budget rule, meaning they can’t run deficits to fund state-sponsored higher education.

Just take a look at was is happening across the country.

Revival of the Gap Year

Freshmen are considering a gap year in droves. Take a look at what one college admissions consultant admitted.

Almost all of my students who have been admitted to top-tier colleges are reconsidering their plans for this upcoming academic year, with some submitting gap year request forms to delay the start of their freshman year so that they can have the full college experience.

And why wouldn’t they take a gap year? A vaccine is predicted to be available in time for the 2021 academic year, and I’m sure they are having a tough time wrapping their heads around paying full-price tuition for hybrid classes.

Going with a Cheaper Option

And if you’re already going online part-time, why not just take the leap and go online full-time with a community college? It’s cheaper. They are more experienced at online education. And it’s safer than living on campus.

Plus, some community colleges are partnering with their state university counterparts to guarantee admission upon graduation. Take a look at the agreement that Indiana’s Ivy Tech has with Indiana University.

Effective June 1, Ivy Tech associate-level graduates from across Indiana are guaranteed admission, based on select provisions, into certain programs at all IU regional campuses via a Guaranteed Admission Agreement (GAA).

Add on the fact that we’re in the middle of a recession, and incoming students are highly motivated to cut costs wherever possible. Outside of the Ivy League and a few other schools with a rich alumni base (think Stanford or Notre Dame), paying a high tuition just doesn’t make the same sense it did just a year ago.

Is Campus Safe?

Secondary education is facing the same safety questions that primary schools are, except for the fact that most colleges are 24 hours operations where students live. This poses a huge threat.

Almost 60% of colleges are planning to resume in-person classes exclusively in the fall, with the standard social distancing, mask wearing, and hand sanitizing requirements and/or suggestions in place. That may not be enough.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post, succinctly titled There is no safe way to reopen colleges this fall, three professors from Georgetown University lay out a convincing case against reopening, even with mitigation strategies in place.

But campuses are a dense network of highly connected, clustered settings with intense social contact; students meet in dorms, classrooms and other common spaces. Diminishing connectivity through physical distancing can’t eliminate long chains of transmission. Cutting a select few environments from the college experience as a “compromise” (e.g., distanced on-campus housing or repurposing dining halls as carryout) might distance students from each other, but probably not enough to stop the spread.

They make a very good point. A college is, “a dense, highly socially connected miniature city, interconnected with its host community.” There is no way to acceptably isolate an outbreak.

And this isn’t the only case of faculty pushing back. While the most notable instance comes from Georgia Tech, many campuses are seeing their professors cry foul about what is being seen as a “forced” reopening.

Additionally, faculty members at Penn State, the University of Illinois, Notre Dame, and the State University of New York have signed petitions saying they feel they’re being pushed back into the classroom too soon.

Lack of History

Lastly, similar to the primary schools, colleges shut down right as the pandemic was ramping up. This saved lives, but it also eliminated any case study of how a college could safely operate. College administrators and facility managers are flying blind, which could lead to campuses becoming fatal petri dishes by September if things go bad.

“This pandemic is really making us address only what is directly in front of us,” says Brian Widowski, P.E., senior project manager with Smith Seckman Read (an engineering firm). “There has not been a lot of time to look back to see where we have had success and where we’ve had failures.”

What’s Next?

Given everything up to this point, it looks like the 2020–2021 academic year is going to be a complete disaster for colleges and universities. I would not be surprised to see hundreds of them close up for good in the next 12 months.

Interest was already declining.

Campuses can’t be made safe.

And the recession is spoiling the draw to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars just so you can work in retail with a master’s degree.

Unfortunately, it won’t just be colleges that feel the pain.

• College towns are going to get hit hard.
• Former students will be left out in the cold.
• Faculty and staff will scramble for jobs.

Regardless of what ultimately happens, my hope is that people get the education they will so desperately need to get through this recession and the slow recovery that will follow.

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