Even more than usual, university leaders are eager to penetrate the minds of their current and prospective students to understand how the upheavals and uncertainties of the past 15 months have changed their expectations of their education. A number of surveys (including that of Inside Higher Ed) have found that students are somewhat dissatisfied with their college experiences, whether remote or personal, but generally believe that their institutions and professors are below the given Circumstances were as good as they could be. And most of them say they want to continue their education.
The latest survey of its kind largely reinforces this trendline – but it does contain some potentially worrying data for those affected by the growing public question about the value of a college degree.
The survey by Third Way and New America, two left-wing think tanks based in Washington, DC, is the third in a row since the pandemic. It covers a wide range of topics, but the focus of this article is on students’ impressions of their learning and overall experiences over the past year and their views on their institutions and education. Many of its results will encourage faculty members and college administrators.
About eight out of ten students surveyed in May gave their colleges and universities positive ratings on various fronts during the pandemic, including providing quality education, caring for the students and their safety, and communicating clearly. The proportions fell below 75 percent when students were asked if their institution cared about students like them, and to around two-thirds on issues like transparency of tuition and fees or the use of federal COVID-19 aids.
Students expressed reservations about the quality of the virtual lessons they received during the pandemic, with nearly six in ten students (57 percent) agreeing that online education is “worse” than in-person tuition (16 percent disagreed) and about three quarters agreed that online higher education should be cheaper than face-to-face teaching. In comparison, students who identified themselves as tutors disagreed on whether the quality of online education was lower.
Still, students do not seem inclined to give up virtual lessons. Only a quarter of all students stated that they would attend all courses in person in the coming academic year, a third would prefer to study completely online and the rest prefer a mixture. In December, 40 percent said they would rather take all of their courses online.
When asked whether the students wanted to continue their education this fall, 85 percent of the students responded (68 percent said they were “very likely”). That’s a 90 percent drop in the replica of the December survey, driven by sharp declines in Latinx (to 59 percent very likely from 68 percent) and black students (to 60 percent very likely from 67 percent).
A smaller survey of 200 high school students found they were slightly more likely to enroll than before the pandemic due to the pandemic, but more of them said they planned to enroll in two-year institutions than they did in December (20 percent versus ). 13 percent).
Perhaps the most disturbing (or at least confusing) data of all for college officials, however, has been student responses about the college’s worth.
Three-quarters of students agreed that their degree was worth the same as if they had received it before the pandemic, several percentage points more than their December response.
But on a more general statement – “higher education is no longer worth the cost to students” – almost two-thirds agreed, compared to just under half in the first survey last August.
The fact that students still think their own degrees are valuable but feel that higher education in general “is not worth the cost” suggests a pricing problem – even if the degrees are valuable, students think that they pay too much for it.
However, as in many surveys, the respondents may also be of the opinion that they have made well-founded decisions themselves, but question the decisions or behavior of others.
source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/students-see-less-value-in-college-despite-positive-experiences/
No comments:
Post a Comment