Posted on 04/13/2020 1:14:31 AM PDT by Libloather
The pandemic and the nation's brutal economic collapse are combining to crush the college hopes of low-income and first-generation students.
Some high school seniors are dropping their first-choice schools in favor of colleges that are cheaper and closer to home, early surveys have found. Others are thinking about going part-time, or taking a gap year so they can work and bail out families whose breadwinners are suddenly out of work. Those who work with low-income students worry freshmen from poor families who were sent home this semester may never return and high school seniors won't get the hands-on help they need with their financial aid applications.
The effects of these decisions could ripple across not just campuses but the U.S. for years to come. Students could be stuck in lower-paying jobs for the rest of their lives, lacking the financial boost brought by a four-year college degree. Requests for additional financial aid will ramp up, and colleges with their own financial struggles may not be able to meet the demand. Colleges could see the widening of an already existing gap between low- and high-income students entering their doors, and many are trying to make it easier for applicants whose lives are in chaos.
“We're on the edge of the precipice,” said Bridgette Davis, a researcher and doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago who is studying 31 low-income students navigating their first year of college. Many have told Davis they are now less confident that they will successfully finish their current college semester, let alone reenroll in the fall.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
If about 2/3 of the nation’s colleges went away tomorrow nobody would miss them and the country would be better off.
Why can’t the government just e-mail them college degrees right after high school? That would save everybody a lot of money and cut out the middle-man
or 2/3 of the students. College used to be a place where academically talent people went to get a degree. Now? lol
Let’s shut all the colleges down now! Out they go forever!!!
Sorry kids.. your dreams of pursuing that gender studies major will have to go onto the back burner.
Or change to tech or engineering schools. If we’re going to rebuild our manufacturing,we need engineers,welders and machinist not BAs in gender studies working the drive up window at Mickey Ds.
“ Some high school seniors are dropping their first-choice schools in favor of colleges that are cheaper and closer to home”
How is that “crushing the hopes” of the students???
While we’re all in the mood of looking at how they do it in South Korea... in Korea the Govt tells the schools what degrees they need in the economy and those are the ones who get admission and college loans. The rest pay their own way or do whatever.
No, you're not. As bunch of drama queens.
I’m totally against any type of student loan forgiveness/bail out. Let them get their hands dirty and get a real job.
Why is this such a bad thing?
Predictably, Pollutico had to play the race card to cast blame on someone other than the students' own questionable choices, and parrots the education industry's claim that advancement and financial security can only come with a degree.
Of course, the real solution is free college and to cancel out all student debt. /s
Damn, that was what I’ve been saying we should do here for years. Except it wouldn’t be the government telling them so much as a survey of the business community. It’s clear though South Korea has an uncommonly competent government. South Korea is becoming my new favorite country.
If the professors want to work for free, more power to them. Just don’t ask the taxpayer to pay them to do it.
It is not crushing the hopes of the students, it is crushing the entitlement of the colleges.
So the big problem is they might have to take a year off before the economy gets back on track? Good, I can’t imagine anything better for a kid then to spend time working in the real world without a college degree for a year after high school. It should teach them what a job is like for someone with any marketable skills and thus convince them they need to pick a degree that employers are actually looking for.
Why have a college degree if there are no jobs because liberal think has destroyed America and the FERAL G0vernment floods the country with visas.
I suggest a trade. Maybe in the line of firearm repair and reloading. Now, that right there may come in handy in the days ahead
“Some high school seniors are dropping their first-choice schools in favor of colleges that are cheaper and closer to home”
Unless you are getting a large scholarship or attending one of the top ten or so colleges in the country, you should be looking at price rather than amenities. Yes, I’ll interview an MIT/Caltech mathematician first, but very few schools jump to the head of the line.
The lockdown is shuttering everyone’s dreams. Not just college students.
Weddings have been halted.
Can’t have funerals.
Can’t change jobs.
Apparently some people are moving but I don’t see it.
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