The answer from Congress will come soon enough, when the Senate returns next week to consider the latest Covid-19-relief proposal. The public verdict may take longer, but it could be the second blow of a one-two punch that colleges will feel for years to come.
I know, I know. Judgy questions like this might seem like squirrelly second-guessing in a no-win situation, especially now that it looks increasingly likely that more colleges will shift online. But from the start, I’ve been doubtful of the feasibility of a face-to-face fall. (My “quotes of the week” were one giveaway, along with calls for an “alt fall” and more innovative gap-year-style programs at colleges.)
And to be sure, early on, major systems like California State University and the Dallas County Community College District considered health risks and began planning for a predominantly remote fall. But for most of the spring and early summer, many colleges were sounding a different tune, as evidenced by The Chronicle’s list of reopening plans and the plexiglass gyrations many big-name institutions were (and still are) performing.
Now, with new Covid-19 hotspots emerging daily, athletics conferences cancelling intercollegiate play, and professors getting increasingly vocal about their concerns over returning to classrooms, colleges are acknowledging that their goal of a normal-ish, mostly in-person semester is looking further and further out of reach.
The financial effects of this will be devastating, especially to the colleges that can’t afford to cut tuition or lose out on the revenue from students who decide not to attend, a dilemma detailed well in this story by my colleague Lee Gardner. Here’s the rub: For health and safety reasons, colleges should be predominantly online this fall. For financial reasons, some of them haven’t dared to make that call. (The Trump administration’s threat to expel international students who aren’t enrolled in at least one in-person class could have tightened the screws, but it was withdrawn on Tuesday.)
This is where a huge relief package, like the $50-billion bailout that went to the airline industry, could really make a life-or-death difference. Colleges did already get $14 billion in the Cares Act passed in March; half of that was slated for students in need. Another infusion now — one big enough to make it possible for colleges to recognize health and safety risks, not operate in person, and still survive — is at best a long shot, for both political and financial reasons.
I’m not laying the blame for that at colleges’ feet — well, not all the blame at least. For sure, there are 1,001 reasons that political support for colleges is hard to come by at this moment, and that would have been true even if leaders had been forthcoming about the fall — and presented a united front — all along. As lobbying insiders have told me, it’s tough to connect with lawmakers during a pandemic, Republicans in general and the Trump administration in particular continue to show antipathy toward higher education, and many other sectors have competing needs.
Colleges’ needs are just “part of the cacophony” that lawmakers are hearing, said Chris Marsicano, an assistant professor of the practice of higher education at Davidson College, whose research focuses on both higher-ed lobbying and how colleges are responding to the pandemic (the latter work is part of the new College Crisis Initiative).
I get it. Helping millions of unemployed people stave off hunger or avoid eviction for their families is a more compelling cause than throwing a lifeline to colleges right now.
At the same time, I wonder whether multiple requests from college lobbyists might have muddled the message. In April, higher ed requested $47 billion from Congress. Then, after a Senate hearing on the feasibility of campus reopenings, higher ed groups conservatively estimated “the costs involved in safely reopening college campuses this fall” at $74 billion.
The lobbyists, from what I’ve been told, were responding to key Senate leaders who had made it clear that they wanted schools and colleges to reopen in person. But given failures to contain the pandemic, higher ed’s message didn’t reflect the reality of the health risks around the nation.
The risks of ‘magical thinking.’
Meanwhile, many individual colleges were playing out their own versions of magical thinking, boldly announcing intentions for an in-person fall. A good number of institutions probably won’t be able to fulfill those hopes, and they’ll take a financial hit for that. I suspect they won’t get much sympathy.
Amy Laitinen, who directs higher-ed policy at New America, shares that feeling. Too much fall planning looked like the goal was “butts in seats,” she told me, “rather than looking out for students and communities.” The interests of institutions and students aren’t always aligned, she noted, and in the fall semester is an extreme case in point. “This is going to further erode trust in higher education,” Laitinen said. “It’s hard to get people to see there’s a problem when you’re accepting deposits for room and board.” To that I’ll add that some colleges have come off as insensitive to professors and staff members’ health concerns, fueling a “trust gap” between senior administrators and employees.
Where does all of this leave higher ed? Hurtin’, for sure. Here’s a $700-billion sector of our economy, one that is vital to the future of individuals and society, now being forced to choose between the health risks of reopening in person and the financial risks of another mostly remote semester.
There’s no going back in time. And perhaps sharing honest doubts about the fall sooner and asking for more relief wouldn’t have gone over well at all. But colleges did send an important early signal to the nation in March about the seriousness of Covid-19, deciding in a matter of weeks to put health and safety first and go remote. The message about this fall is a much different one.
I’m sure in the end, protecting the safety of students and staff members will be colleges’ guiding principle. Although skepticism is already rising with infections among athletes and janitors. If a disrupted semester is the likely outcome (I don’t think we’ll make it to Thanksgiving), will all the planning and expense for an in-person fall really have been worth it? What if more colleges had felt financially and politically safe enough to make the moral case for a remote fall right from the outset? What would the public reception have been?
Maybe it’s foolish of me to think that colleges could have galvanized their millions of students, professors, alumni, and trustees to make the case right now for higher education writ large. The logistics of that alone are hard to imagine, never mind that the sentiment for the cause might not be all that fervent or broad. As one insider put it to me last week: “Higher ed isn’t quite the spectacular success that, in our lofty moments, we make it out to be.”
Still, even if I hadn’t spent 32 years writing about colleges, and even if my salary didn’t depend on the sector’s continued strength, I’d recognize the enduring role of these institutions, however imperfect, to educate the populace, promote economic opportunity, and nourish local communities. And maybe the Trump administration’s abrupt turnaround on the international-students rule, in the face of widespread opposition from colleges and allies, shows that higher ed can actually flex political power.
It’s not too late. College leaders should keep finding ways, especially together, to make the case. The pandemic and recession will harm a good number of colleges, and America will be worse for that. Before the final die is cast, the country should know what could be lost.
How can colleges conduct research during a pandemic?
Our discussion on higher ed’s vital research mission continues on Thursday, July 16, at 2 p.m. Eastern time with my colleague Francie Diep (here is her Twitter thread of highlights from the first discussion). This week the panel will focus on how institutions are planning to sustain research activities amid ever-changing circumstances and how funding agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health help or complicate that planning. The panelists — Michael S. Lauer, deputy director for extramural research at NIH;
Susan Lozier, dean of the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech; and Preeti Malani, chief health officer in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan — will be taking up those questions and answering any you might have. Sign up here to watch live or later on demand.
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