The statement by the Bucknell president referenced in post 78 is bleak. And Bucknell is a highly rated and well endowed school. Yikes.
I think it’s interesting that Bucknell called out changing the school year calendar as an option. I’ve seen that idea bantered around by some posters but never really thought it could happen. I do think it could help everyone, both the colleges and the students.
Here is part of the most recent Bowdoin update (3/27) that talks about the budget
With remote classes underway, we are focusing on the budget. The impact of this crisis on College finances will be significant, with—in particular—a substantial decline in the value of our endowment. We’ve begun a close reexamination of operating budgets for the current fiscal year, given the new reality, and the budget in process for the following year. Until we have a better understanding of what’s ahead, I am implementing a freeze on new hiring (with a handful of exceptions). As we move forward and deal with the new financial reality, the preservation of jobs will be my number-one priority. It is important to remember that, notwithstanding the serious issues we are facing, we have worked through periods of crisis and financial stress in the past and emerged strong, and we will here as well. There will be more to come on the financial issues in the days ahead.
I agree, yikes. Props for honesty and transparency…the most I have seen in these communications by any school president.
It is notable as Bucknell is a very good school, highly ranked, with a fairly healthy endowment per student. (Total endowment right now about $700m, which prior to the stock market correction was $850m).
It should make everyone think carefully about attending a school that has a small endowment, high expense base, and/or low financial rating, such as found on the Forbes site, linked in a post up thread.
Ok here is my take, I assume schools will be online for fall semester, I live in NJ and work in NYC so right now we are getting our butt kicked by this virus, I think most kids deciding where to go in the fall will be guessing since money is due by 5/1 or 6/1, colleges will be open but dorms will not be, colleges can not wait a semester so online it will be, it will be better online than right now bc they will have a few months to work out kinks, some will get a gap year, get not take, schools will only allow so many, they are a business after all. And really if your kids are like mine, they want out of the house and on line learning so a gap year is not really looking to great if there is nothing to do that year. While we can debate online vs classroom, I think the issue is online at x vs x+ classroom is the discussion and colleges are gonna want regular tuition , they are losing dorm fees this spring and in the fall , in my thinking, so no discount. Colleges know they are gonna get hit with plenty of FA request above and beyond the normal. So they will count on overpaying for one semester of online learning to keep you kid in said school for the next 3.5 years. In most of the schools we toss about on CC most parents who can ,will bi*** and moan but will do it for a semester. Some will go the instate flagship ( at 30k)vs. Syracuse( at 74K) for instance but that decision will be made before we know if colleges are open for normal business in Sept. I have to think it is cheaper for a school to do online classes which are scaleable vs a set number of seats, but I do not know the debt load these schools are under or 100 other cost so lets assume schools know they will need cash coming in so assume no discount in the fall. As mentioned a good amount of small Lac will be in trouble but they are in trouble now. Like most I have a spreadsheet set up about my sons college choices, I have added 2 columns, endowment and number of hospital beds in a 25 mile radius of potential colleges. In many ways I am in good spot my son has not chosen a school yet so we have options, instate flagship, acceptances with good merit aid supposedly for 4 years vs a aid grant for one year( we have that also and that one scares me) vs a college JR who choices are nowhere near as robust. Yes many of us are in the dark about what will happen in the fall but so are colleges. We are making big d
LACs will not do “scalable” classes, at least the best ones will not. They already won’t be delivering the type of education parents and students expect if they are online and making classes bigger is against everything they stand for. And I’m starting to think that online just isn’t going to be the answer. What about all of the science majors and premeds with labs? And the dance majors and architecture majors and on and on? What classes will they take?
Maybe a change in the school year calendar is more likely.
Your numbers are for the entire year, and include the R&B. Tuition at the expensive private schools is $50-60k, so half that for one semester. State schools will run about $5-10k for a semester. Room and board will be the same because it will be at home (unless upperclassman living in their college towns).
@twoinanddone - you are correct my numbers are for full year and include R&B so in Syracuse’s case, not to pick on them but I know their numbers, R&B runs about 8k a semester and tuition runs about 29K a semester( including fees) vs Rutgers , my states instate flagship which has a high in state cost , of roughly R&B of 5K a semester and 10 K tuition a semester, not sure what you mean R&B will be the same at home . my point is are parents willing to pay in Cuse’s case 29K for online classes, ( and this does not count any aid supplied by Cuse but is that aid based on living there) , I think colleges are gonna have to bet parents are willing to suck it up for one semester of on line learning vs traditional college to keep their spot and their merit aid packages.
I think Lac will hope and pray this is a one semester problem and thing return to normal in Jan 2021, schools can push off labs… for a semester for most of their kids and Lac can leverage their school’s 4 years halo to again hope parents will suck it up for a semester to hold their spot. This works for the top to middle LAc’s not so much for the bottom 50% of schools in the rankings.
Besides all the good points being discussed here, this is also a good time to see how schools have responded and will continue to respond to this situation especially the larger Public Schools. I have seen some schools do a very poor job even prior to all this mess. The University of Wisconsin has been one of them. I am aware these are large institutions, but it allows to compare and see how many of these schools are managed.
There is no doubt that schools that announced their ED and EA class prior to Feb 15 will be seeing many kids turning down or waiting out their acceptances Many others will be thrilled and lucky to eventually get accepted as the schools will be trying to get as many students as possible.
As the economic tsunami hits everyone involved many will simply walk away from their deposits come July and August and choose local inexpensive schools.
I sure hope that these schools are as transparent in communicating their plans in the next couple of weeks. This will allow everyone to make the best possible decision for themselves. I would agree that all the deadlines should be postponed to June 1 and schools should refund students deposits if a change of heart is made. We should have much more clarity by the end of May as to where all of this is going.
Risk management. Flights could stop instantly and borders closed. Unlikely, but possible especially if the virus mutates to something more virulent or the campus is near a “hotspot”. What if your kid gets sick? Is there a good hospital near campus? How will you get to them if they’re 3,000 miles away and flights are scarce? Or worse what if they’re overseas?
Possibly sitting with thousands of travelers at an airport during a pandemic doesn’t seem appealing. Especially if you’re in a higher risk category.
I agree that there’s no experience like being on-campus. That said, my kids are actually liking the online AP classes. They said the teachers are better than their HS. It would be difficult to replicate lab classes but everything else is fair game.
Personally, I think fall semester will be online this year. Best case is the US restarts in June. Is that enough time to get everything organized and re-stocked for schools that start in August? Plus the risk involved if we still have hotspots into July and August makes it tough to risk a start/stop of the fall semester.
Are college president’s willing to stand-up to the heat to get fall classes started, even if some parents/students think it’s the wrong decision?
Many schools could switch up the calendar to have the option to start Oct 1 or so, but that would mean finals in Jan. I think that could be a reasonable tradeoff (assuming the pandemic is over).
For example Bowdoin students currently have Jan off. So start Oct 1, go back to school early Jan. Maybe 1 week break between the semesters and only 1 week spring break, instead of the usual two.
The million dollar question is then- is starting in October going to be more safe than starting in August? And why?
It will be interesting if individual schools break from the “script” and do their own thing this fall. In the end I suspect they will all do the same thing. Too much pressure not to.
Will students avoid attending colleges in the hot spots?
Completely agree.
But if students can’t return to campus, that means their options will be limited for GAP year activities. So then they are faced with the decision as to what to do instead of doing online school. Some might choose other things, some will choose online school, some might transfer to a school that did open up.
OTOH some pre-health types might choose to take the year off and work as a CNA, EMT, respiratory therapist, etc, as online classes and P/F grades are generally not looked upon favorably in med school admissions.
I would. Young people can get very sick from this virus. Not just high-risk people. Will we get back to normal eventually…sure. Everyone makes choices. We chose less risky. Time will tell.
My wife is working in the ICU. As soon as they started learning more about the virus and seeing the effects we took all schools that were more than a day’s drive off the list…parents choice rule. Luckily that was only one school and it wasn’t his top choice. He’s still going to be about a 10-12 hour drive away but at least we can get there. They also have excellent medical facilities nearby.
It would seem logical to send a student farther away to a safer spot than remaining near parents in the northeast, for example. Actually, the UK seems to have possibly peaked and is improving, so that might be the safest choice. Or Canada, which had less trouble.
I suspect the pandemic will subside by this summer. However, it may make a comeback in the fall, especially if it continues in the Southern Hemisphere. Many colleges will probably take a wait-and-see attitude and start online instructions first with a pending option for students to return to campus at a later date.
@1NJParent I think we should stop saying things like “I think schools will do x”. We don’t have a clue what schools are going to do. That Bucknell letter said nothing about online fall classes. That made me think that maybe colleges really aren’t entertaining that as the first option.
As we see other schools start to make statements about fall semester, we could post those here