COVID pandemic is changing which colleges students want to attend. Here’s how
There’s a surge in college applications during the coronavirus pandemic — but only at some schools.
Selective universities in the United States are seeing a rise in interest while enrollment is down at community colleges, multiple news outlets have reported.
Here’s how experts and higher learning institutions explain the trend.
What’s driving interest in top schools?
Some top schools have tied a surge in interest to their decisions to drop ACT and SAT standardized testing requirement during the pandemic.
Among the schools suspending testing requirements was Cornell University, which has received 17,000 more applications than ever before, The New York Times reported Saturday.
“We saw people that thought ‘I would never get into Cornell’ thinking, ‘Oh, if they’re not looking at a test score, maybe I’ve actually got a chance,’” Jonathan Burdick, vice provost for enrollment at the New York school, told the Times.
Several other Ivy League schools saw their application totals surge to record highs as many of them had fewer spots open to new students, news outlets reported.
Some of the nation’s top schools accepted fewer students after some freshmen originally slated to be in the class of 2024 opted for gap years, according to CNBC. Also, the outcome of the 2020 presidential election drove up interest from applicants living abroad, the news outlet reported in December.
It’s not just Ivy League schools. State flagships also saw a rise in prospective students filling out the The Common App, a tool used to complete college applications, according to The Washington Post.
Stephanie Sylla, a high school senior, applied to several competitive schools and said the option to submit test scores “really changed my perspective on how I look at my achievements,” the newspaper reported.
What’s happening at other colleges?
While some top universities are getting more applicants during COVID-19, others weren’t affected in the same way.
Some community colleges have seen enrollment drop as requests for scholarships and meal assistance go up, The Associated Press reported. Some potential students have faced financial struggles or turned their attention to child care during the pandemic.
“We are worried about losing some of them permanently,” said David Podell, president of Massachusetts Bay Community College, according to the news outlet. “They may follow up later, but each year that they defer their education, the less they’re going to make in a lifetime and the later the stability will come.”
Declining enrollment also has impacted many four-year schools across the country. With fewer students taking classes and courses offered online at some schools, institutions have furloughed employees or reduced their salaries.
At smaller private and public universities, applications through the Common App are down “modestly,” The Washington Post reported last month.
The State University of New York system this year saw a roughly 20% decline in applications, Chancellor Jim Malatras wrote in Empire Report.
Jeffrey D. Gant, vice president for enrollment management for the system’s New Paltz campus, called the drop at his school “a function of the many financial, social, health and educational challenges that amount to the hefty toll the pandemic has taken on all students, Inside Higher Ed reported this month.
During the pandemic, schools are also seeing some prospective students applying at lower rates.
The data is “troubling but again not surprising that first-generation and lower-income applicants are declining in number” due to the pandemic’s impacts on those groups, said Robert J. Massa of Enrollment Intelligence Now, according to Inside Higher Ed.
