In a new national survey, 77% of college students said they would take the vaccine when needed … [+]
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A new national online survey shows that after more than a year of battling the Covid-19 pandemic, a majority of college students are optimistic about the disease’s progression, but many are also concerned about their own economic future and increasingly skeptical about its value higher education in general.
These are key takeaways from One Year Later: COVID-19’s Impact on Current and Future College Students, which summarizes a nationwide representative survey conducted between April 29 and May 13, 2021 by think tanks New America and Third Way in Collaboration with Global Strategy Group, a public relations and research company.
The survey was the third the groups commissioned over the past year to assess college students’ response to the pandemic and their opinions on how colleges are dealing with it. It gathered responses from 1,002 college students across the country, including samples from 242 supervisors, 269 black students, and 325 Latinx students. The survey also included another 200 high school graduates.
Schoolchildren are vaccinated believing the worst of the pandemic is over
More than half – 53% – of college students believe the worst of the pandemic is over, but Black (38%) and Latinx (48%) students are less confident than others. Students also said they were less concerned about catching Covid-19 and passing it on to others than they were in a December survey.
About half of respondents said they had received at least one dose of a vaccine at the time of the survey, although the rate is lower among care students (40%) and black students (29%).
Even more encouraging is to find that 77% of students said they would take the vaccine if they had to go to school in the fall, up 9 percentage points from December. For high school graduates, this rate was 79%. Although black students and carers reported receiving the vaccine at lower rates (49% and 54%, respectively) in December, those rates had risen to 65% for black students and 64% for caregiving students in the May survey.
Students believe their institutions responded well to the pandemic
A large majority (72%) of college students agreed that “the way my institution handled the pandemic over the past semester, that I have placed more trust in its leadership”. Nursing students, black students, and Latinx all tended to advocate this position at a similarly high level.
Overall, 81% of students praised their university for dealing with the pandemic in the best possible way (compared to 76% in December), 79% praised the clear communication since the beginning of the pandemic, and 79% believed that their institutions were doing well -equipped for future emergencies (79%).
Shelbe Klebs, a Third Way Policy Advisor and one of the report’s authors, highlighted the fact that the overall effectiveness of the institutional responses to the pandemic helped students maintain a sense of optimism: they are still optimistic about the worst the pandemic is behind us and their institutions have handled it well. And students believe their degrees have value – 66% say their institution offers a good return on investment and 75% believe their degree will have the same value as it was before the pandemic. “
One area where students continued to raise concerns was the linchpin of online teaching. Over half (56%) worry that their degree might be less valuable because it was online, and 65% of college graduates had similar concerns.
Most college students now have at least a semester of experience of online courses, or a mix of online and face-to-face teaching, a story that hasn’t rid them of their negative views about online teaching.
Students are unsure of the economy and lose confidence in the value of college in general
As the Klebs comment above suggests, college students are suspicious of the country’s economy. Only 26% believe the economy will get better, while 33% believe it will get worse. And when it comes to their own personal financial situation in the next few months, almost half (47%) say they feel uncomfortable.
This pessimism is related to another insight that universities have to grapple with. As the pandemic has progressed, students’ doubts about the value of a college degree have grown. Almost two-thirds (65%) think higher education is no longer worth the cost, up from 57% in December and 49% in August.
Concerns about the economy lead students to worry about their own personal finances. Two-thirds say they are concerned about being able to pay their tuition and 62% are concerned about their non-educational bills. This is even more so for caregivers – 76% are concerned about paying tuition fees and 80% about meeting non-educational obligations. In addition, almost 80% of students worry about their job prospects after graduation.
Implications for the future
Among current college students, 85% said they are likely to enroll again at their current college for the upcoming fall semester. However, 18% said that due to the pandemic, they would definitely need extra time to complete their studies. Of the supervised and Latinx students, 24% and 28% respectively said they definitely needed more time to complete their studies.
Among high school graduates, 60% said the pandemic hadn’t changed their plans to enroll in college; 18% said the pandemic made them less likely to enroll.
Respondents were also asked for their opinion on various federal policies to strengthen higher education. Unsurprisingly, nearly half (47%) would prioritize measures that could make higher education more affordable, and 32% wanted to prioritize measures that reduce student loan repayment burdens for borrowers. Around one in ten (13%) would prioritize measures to increase accountability in colleges and universities.
As is often the case, the survey paints a picture of good news and bad news about the impact of the pandemic. The good news? Students are optimistic that the pandemic is coming to an end and that their colleges will respond well to future challenges, just as they did during the crisis. The bad news? It seems that the pandemic has undermined student confidence in the future of the economy and has weakened their belief in the value of online teaching and higher education in general.
Colleges now face the dual task of building student confidence that a return to something resembling a normal campus experience is within reach, while reinforcing their belief that a college degree is both affordable and valuable is.
source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/new-survey-shows-college-students-optimistic-about-pandemics-end-but-worried-about-economic-prospects-and-value-of-college/
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