'Losing A Generation': Fall College Enrollment Plummets For 1st-Year Students

[AGDee]

I did an entire online master's degree and I absolutely did not teach myself. That's a misconception about remote learning. I had professors who were engaged and active with us. One of them even recruited me to work for him at my current employer because he knew me and knew what I was capable of.

Most elementary/middle/highschool kids are going to be somewhat "behind" at this point- but they are ALL behind together. Doesn't that really just move the bar for where they should be right now? Isn't that why a lot of colleges aren't requiring test scores now?

I would think the kids with scholarships and grants would be the ones who were still in school. It's the full pay kids who took a gap year- because they could. Can you even do that if you were on scholarship? I couldn't, but that was years and years ago. I had to be a full time student for the duration of the scholarship offer (4 year period). The money savings is in not staying on campus right now. And I would think students in tight financial situations would take advantage of that and get as many credits in as possible while not being forced to live on campus. I know several kids who beefed up their course load to graduate early (including one from Sciencewoman's university).

[carnation]

I teach high school face to face right now. My students are where they should be. According to many teachers in my field whom I know who have had to teach virtually or in hybrid mode (too long, I know), their kids are the ones who are lagging way behind. Some of the students had sloppy attendance, some did little work because they figured their schools would pass them anyway, some never tried until the last week...you name it.

One local teacher who teaches both F2F and virtually told me that she has let her F2F students take all open-book tests because she knows her virtual students are cheating their butts off on everything; why should they get all A's for nothing while the regular students get "real" grades? Unfortunately, I've heard many students at all grade levels through college snicker about their fake grades because they've figured out how to cheat even with cameras on them.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by *winter*

The fact is, colleges have been out pricing many students for about ten years now, and this is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Lower income students were barely hanging on since prices have risen over senseless things like studio dorms or new entertainment centers. It became more about competing for which campus could offer the most amenities and less about trying to educate the most students to transition people out of lower income statuses- isn’t that what state universities were partially designed for?

This times a billion. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some of these suites turned back into traditional dorms or even the perimeters of campi moved and these ridiculously OTT buildings turned into senior citizen living or something.

Originally Posted by AGDee

Most elementary/middle/highschool kids are going to be somewhat "behind" at this point- but they are ALL behind together. Doesn't that really just move the bar for where they should be right now? Isn't that why a lot of colleges aren't requiring test scores now?

But that’s the thing, they’re NOT all behind together. Kid A whose mom has been working from home this whole time and making sure he logs onto his computer and is there to answer his questions is ahead of Kid B whose mom is working 60 hours a week at Target and sometimes sleeps through class, and is light years ahead of Kid C, who doesn’t even have internet in his home because his meth head parents didn’t pay the electric bill. This pandemic has separated the haves and the have nots big time.