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EDITORIAL: Proposed Cal U. merger with Clarion portends further changes in higher education

3 min read
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The 2000s were still young when the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 happened, and the moments of horror on that late summer morning ended up shaping the decade that followed. It looks now like the coronavirus pandemic will be a similarly defining event for culture, politics and society in the 2020s.

One of the areas that could end up experiencing the most thorough and wrenching changes in the months and years ahead is higher education.

COVID-19 sent students home when it gained a foothold in this country in March, and the spiking case numbers in this region and across the country make a return to in-person instruction in a little over a month a dubious and potentially dangerous proposition. Many students have decided to delay their entry to schools because of the uncertainty the virus has sown. College and university budgets stand to take devastating hits from the loss of revenue from tuition, room and board. Public institutions are almost certainly in for at least a couple of years of austerity thanks to state budget cuts. Some smaller colleges and universities might end up closing their doors permanently.

Even before COVID-19, higher education was confronting a menu of problems that included falling enrollment due to demographic shifts, ballooning costs and growing skepticism that the ball-and-chain of debt that many students drag with them through their lives is really worth it. The coronavirus seems certain to hasten changes in the structure and mission of higher education.

The announcement last week that California University of Pennsylvania and Clarion University could be integrating faculty, staff and programs could be a harbinger of what’s to come.

The two universities are within the struggling Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, and other universities within the system could also be pooling resources after a two-year redesign process is completed. Considering that enrollment at Cal U. has fallen by 27% since a peak in 2011, taking such action seems all but inevitable.

Officials have pledged that a robust on-campus experience will remain at both Cal U. and Clarion in the years ahead. But the pandemic seems bound to accelerate a push toward online learning, where student contact with a campus is not a daily experience, or even a weekly experience in some cases. The sense of community that is fostered on a campus will inevitably be altered.

The fate of traditional academic programs is also up for grabs. Will traditional liberal arts majors like English or history be diminished while greater emphasis is placed on programs that are perceived to be more marketable, such as computer science, accounting or health care? And since parents and students are so concerned about the value of those expensive degrees, will states eventually make greater investments in public institutions so tuition costs can come down? If Joe Biden becomes president next year, and there is a Democratic Congress, will there be an effort to reduce or eliminate student debt?

Education “is the passport to the future,” as Malcolm X said many years ago. The future of higher education itself is packed with questions that have few simple answers.

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