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Tag: college enrollment

  • PROOF POINTS: Most college kids are taking at least one class online, even long after campuses reopened

    PROOF POINTS: Most college kids are taking at least one class online, even long after campuses reopened

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    The pandemic not only disrupted education temporarily; it also triggered permanent changes. One that is quietly taking place at colleges and universities is a major, expedited shift to online learning. Even after campuses reopened and the health threat diminished, colleges and universities continued to offer more online courses and added more online degrees and programs. Some brick-and-mortar schools even switched to online only. 

    To be sure, far fewer college students are learning online today than during the peak of the pandemic, when online instruction was an emergency response. But there are far more students regularly logging into their computers for their classes now than in 2019, according to the latest federal data. In fact, there are so many more that online enrollment hit a new post-pandemic milestone in the fall of 2022 when a majority – 54 percent – of college students took one or more of their classes online, a nearly 50 percent increase from the fall of 2019 when 37 percent of college students took at least one online class. 

    Hill’s chart shows how online learning at college has jumped to a new plateau. The green line represents the percentage of students who are taking at least one class online in the fall of each academic year. This includes both students who are in online programs and taking all of their classes online as well as students who are studying in brick-and-mortar campuses and taking only some of their classes online. It also includes both undergraduate and graduate students at all kinds of institutions, two-year community colleges and four-year universities, both private and public. 

    The green line of online course taking was growing steadily before the pandemic. It spiked in the fall of 2020, when three quarters of all students were taking classes online. It’s not 100 percent, as it might have been in the spring of 2020, because some states and campuses had reopened by the fall. A year later, in the fall of 2021, online learning had fallen to 60 percent of college students, but many schools had not yet resumed normal operations. By the fall of 2022, online learning had settled to 54 percent of students. Hill calls it the “new normal” and predicts that online learning will continue to grow in future years.

    The sheer numbers are staggering: more than 10 million college students were learning online in the fall of 2022. Compared to before the pandemic, an additional 1.5 million students were taking all of their courses online and 1.35 million more students were taking at least one course online — even as the total number of college students fell by more than a million between 2019 and 2022. 

    “Online has become more the norm,” said Phil Hill, a consultant and market analyst of education technology in higher education, whose newsletter alerted me to the new milestone. “It’s almost like exclusive face-to-face instruction is becoming the exception.”

    The numbers come from the Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, known as IPEDS, which released fresh data for 2022-23 in January 2024. (Colleges are required to report masses of figures to the Education Department every year in order for their students to be eligible for federal student loans.) Hill extracted the online learning figures from the database and wrote about them in a Jan. 21, 2024  newsletter, “Fall 2022 IPEDS Data: Profile of US Higher Ed Online Education.” 

    This column is largely based on Hill’s analysis, but buttressing the evidence for continued growth in online learning is newer fall 2023 data, released after the IPEDS data was made public and Hill’s report, from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, the research arm of a nonprofit that assists colleges with their data reporting requirements. The Clearinghouse reported that student enrollment growth for the category covering primarily online institutions was twice as large as enrollment growth overall (2.2 percent versus 1.1 percent) between fall 2022 and fall 2023. It didn’t track online course taking at traditional colleges and universities.

    At first glance, it might seem strange that both online classes and degree programs are growing while college enrollment has been declining for more than a decade. But Hill explained to me that lost tuition revenue is driving the online shift. Online classes and programs are a way for colleges to reach students who live far from their area. They also appeal to older working adults who cannot come to campus every day. The quest for new students (and their tuition payments) has become more critical for many colleges as there are fewer college-age students in many regions of the country – a population drop that’s spreading throughout the country and will soon affect colleges nationwide. In higher education, it’s called the “demographic cliff.”

    “It’s starting to come down to schools saying, ‘If we’re gonna stay alive as an institution, we’re going to be a lot more aggressive in finding ways to reach students,” said Hill. “It’s an existential issue.”

    In recent months, several colleges have announced that they’re transforming into purely online institutions to avoid closure. Goddard College in Vermont said it will end on-campus residency programs beginning in the fall of 2024. It had been faced with declining enrollment and tuition revenue, combined with rising operating costs. Three University of Wisconsin campuses are also ending in-person instruction:  UW Milwaukee – Washington County, UW Oshkosh – Fond du Lac,  and UW Green Bay – Marinette.

    Four-year public colleges and universities are behind the large post-pandemic increases in online learning, according to Hill. In the past, for-profit colleges, primarily online nonprofits and community colleges had been large drivers of the online trend. 

    The pandemic expedited the shift, Hill said, because many colleges hemorrhaged students during the public health crisis and got an early taste of the demographic cliff ahead. Colleges are restructuring for the future. At the same time, nearly all faculty tried teaching online in 2020 and that experience chipped away at their previous resistance, said Hill. Professors may still not be fans of online learning, but they’re not protesting it as much.

    Hill’s second chart shows the numbers of students learning online. The gray line represents all college students and shows how the total number of college students has been falling for a decade. The blue line represents students who take all of their courses online. That spiked at the beginning of the pandemic. The red line represents students who were taking at least one but not all of their courses online. Combined together, the red and blue lines surpass the number of college students who take all of their classes in person, as represented by the orange line.

    Another phenomenon is that colleges are banding together to offer online classes that individual campuses, especially ones in rural areas, cannot afford to teach on their own. It’s a bit like airline code sharing. Hill said the Colorado Community College System, one of his clients, is developing online courses that all 13 colleges can share with their students.

    For students, the online shift is a mixed bag. In some cases, it means they can still take classes that otherwise might not be offered, or they can finish their degrees at an institution that might otherwise have shut down. But there’s a large body of research showing that students don’t learn as much from an online course and are more likely to fail or drop out.

    One change from pre-pandemic times, according to Hill, is that more online instruction is now scheduled. Lectures still tend to be recorded for viewing at one’s convenience, but students are often required to log in for a discussion or an activity over Zoom. In entirely “asynchronous” courses, students can log in whenever they want. Often that means that they don’t log in at all.

    Keeping students motivated online remains a challenge for community colleges, Hill said. “If you’re going to teach online, you still need comprehensive student support, but community colleges are resource constrained,”  he said, explaining that they don’t have enough advisers and counselors to make sure students are logging in and keeping up with their work.  Often, financial, work and family responsibilities interfere with school.

    It’s worth noting that far fewer students are learning online at the most selective colleges. Fewer than 20 percent of students are taking an online course at Harvard, Yale, Swarthmore, Williams and a handful of other elite colleges, according to Hill’s analysis. It’s yet another example of how schooling is changing between the haves and the have-nots.

    This story about online college classes was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Proof Points newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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    Jill Barshay

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  • Unity College Announces Record-Breaking Fall Enrollment

    Unity College Announces Record-Breaking Fall Enrollment

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    Press Release
    –


    updated: Nov 2, 2022


    NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine, November 2, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Unity College sets a new enrollment record this fall as the institution welcomes more than 1,900 new students since August. This brings the college’s full-time equivalent student population to more than 4,600 students representing all 50 states.

    “This time last year we were hoping to hit 5,000 full-time students within three years. We are elated to be on-pace to beat that number during the ’22-23 school year,” said Unity College President and CEO Dr. Melik Peter Khoury. “Compare that to 10 years ago, when we were at 540 students, and you can really see that we don’t just talk about flexibility and affordability – we have changed our entire model to provide better access for our students.”

    In 2012, baccalaureate degree tuition at Unity College was $23,000; by 2018, that number had risen to $28,000 per year. Since moving to the College’s unique student-centered Enterprise Model, Unity tuition has fallen to an average of $13,000 per year. 

    This approach has allowed Unity College to attract a more diverse socioeconomic and multicultural student population. Now, the College now boasts a 22% self-disclosed diverse student population, that’s up from a 50-year average of 8%. The average student age has also grown from 19 to 28, as more place-bound adults have discovered Unity’s unique experiential online programming.

    “As America’s Environmental College it is our responsibility to ensure we graduate thousands of culturally competent, well-educated individuals who can make an immediate impact in the environmental career space. It is our duty to make sure those students are not debt-ridden to the point that it prevents them from reaching their true potential,” said Dr. Khoury.

    The College’s recent growth is supported by many of Unity’s environmentally focused in-demand majors such as Animal Health and Behavior, Conservation Law, Marine Biology and Sustainable Aquaculture, and Wildlife Conservation.

    “We do not simply take our courses and put them online. At Unity College Distance Education our courses are designed to be experiential, which means our students are getting hands-on experience right in their own area of the country. Your community is your classroom,” said Distance Education Executive Director of Enrollment Management Denise Young. 

    This growth positions Unity College to continue exploring ground-breaking modes of learning for years to come. Unity’s high residency Hybrid Learning program continues to bring students to Unity, Maine for in-person learning, and staff at the new Technical Institute for Environmental Professions are planning to bring in its first cohort in the near future. 

    About Unity College
    The first institution of higher education in the nation to divest from fossil fuel investments, Unity College is changing the face of higher education. Sustainability science lies at the heart of its educational mission, offering environmentally-focused degrees on campus and online. For more information, visit unity.edu.

    Media Inquiries: Contact Joseph Hegarty, jhegarty@unity.edu.

    Source: Unity College

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  • Biden’s Cancellation of Billions in Debt Won’t Solve the Larger Problem

    Biden’s Cancellation of Billions in Debt Won’t Solve the Larger Problem

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    For years, American lawmakers have chipped away at the fringes of reforming the student-loan system. They’ve flirted with it in doomed bills that would have reauthorized the Higher Education Act—which is typically renewed every five to 10 years but has not received an update since 2008. Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s student-debt portfolio has steadily grown to more than $1.5 trillion.

    Today, calls for relief were answered when President Joe Biden announced that his administration would be canceling up to $10,000 in student loans for those with federal debt, and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. As long as a borrower makes less than $125,000 a year, or makes less than $250,000 alongside a spouse, they would be eligible for cancellation. The president will also extend the current loan-repayment pause—originally enacted by then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 as a pandemic-relief measure—until December 31.

    The debt relief—which by one estimate could cost a total of $300 billion—is a massive benefit for Americans who have struggled to repay loans they accrued attending college, whether they completed a degree or not. But equally as important as addressing the damage that student loans have caused is ensuring that Americans aren’t saddled with overwhelming debt again. And the underlying issue of college affordability can be addressed only if America once again views higher education as a public good. Belatedly canceling some student debt is what a country does when it refuses to support students up front.

    According to a White House fact sheet, 90 percent of Biden’s debt relief will go to those who earn less than $75,000 a year—and the administration estimates that 20 million people will have their debt completely canceled.  “An entire generation is now saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for an attempt, at least, for a college degree,” Biden said at a White House event. “The burden is so heavy that even if you graduate, you may not have access to the middle-class life that the college degree once provided.” That Democrats arrived at this point at all, though, is a testament to how grim the student-loan crisis has become. A decade and a half ago, Democrats were advocating for small increases in the federal grant program to help low-income students afford college. Over successive presidential campaigns, Democratic hopefuls, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have called for canceling most, or all, student debt issued by the government—effectively hitting reset on a broken system. And now the party is announcing one of the largest federal investments in higher education in recent memory.

    Read: How the Democrats got radical on student debt

    When he was running for president in 2007, Biden advocated for a tax credit for college students and a marginal increase in the size of individual Pell Grant awards—tinkering around the edges of solving a brewing mess as America lurched toward a deep recession. From 2006 to 2011, college enrollment grew by 3 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau; at the same time, states began to cut back on their higher-education spending. On average, by 2018, states were spending 13 percent less per student than they were in 2008.

    Historically, when states look to cut their budgets, higher education is one of the first sectors to feel the blade. Polling shows that the majority of Americans agree that a college degree pays off. But college, unlike K–12 schooling, is not universal, and a majority of Republicans believe that investment in higher education benefits graduates more than anyone else. So lawmakers have been willing to make students shoulder a greater share of the burden. But this shift leaves those with the fewest resources to pay for college—and those whose families earn a little too much to qualify for Pell Grants—taking on significant debt.

    The shift flies in the face of the Framers’ view of higher education, though. “There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature,” George Washington, an early proponent of the idea of a national university, said in his first address before Congress, in 1790. “Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.” Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Rush, and others believed that colleges might be a place where Americans could build a national identity—a place where they could, for lack of better words, become good citizens.

    In that spirit, the federal government provided massive investments in the nation’s colleges, albeit inequitably—through the Morrill Act, which formed the backbone of state higher-education systems as we know them; the GI Bill; and the Pell Grant program—which directly subsidize students’ expenses. But in the past half century, radical investments in higher-education access have dried up. Now a political divide has opened up: Conservative lawmakers—whose voters are more likely not to have attended college—have grown not only suspicious of but in some cases openly hostile toward the enterprise.

    Read: America is divided by education

    Meanwhile, 77 percent of Democrats believe that the government should subsidize college education. “We want our young people to realize that they can have a good future,” Senator Chuck Schumer said in April. “One of the best, very best, top-of-the-list ways to do it is by canceling student debt.” He wanted the president to be ambitious and called for giving borrowers $50,000 in relief—“even going higher after that.” A month into his administration, though, Biden shot down the idea of $50,000, to the chagrin of relief advocates. “Canceling just $10,000 of debt is like pouring a bucket of ice water on a forest fire,” the NAACP’s Derrick Johnson and Wisdom Cole argued today. “It hardly achieves anything—only making a mere dent in the problem.”

    The administration is coupling its announcement with a redesign of payment plans that allows borrowers to cap their monthly loan payments at 5 percent of their discretionary income. But the basic problem remains: Young Americans of modest means can no longer afford to attend their state university by getting a part-time job and taking out a small loan. For millions of students, borrowing thousands of dollars has become the key to paying for an undergraduate degree. Biden’s plan will give graduates—and those who have taken out loans but not finished school—some relief, but the need to overhaul a system reliant on debt remains as urgent as ever.

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    Adam Harris

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