By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
Over one million fewer college students are attending American universities compared to before the pandemic, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. Higher education administrators had hoped that after the first year decline, and with the availability of vaccinations, enrolments would rebound with the newly graduated students plus a large portion of those who failed to enroll the prior year.
However, barely two percent of the high school graduates who chose not to attend college in fall 2020 enrolled in college in fall 2021.
The largest drop in attendance occurred in community colleges where there has been a 13 percent drop in enrollment these last 2 years. This still puzzled college administrators since many of these students live at home and were less threatened by prolonged time on campus.
One factor affecting community colleges is the inability to deliver instruction online for programs that require hands-on training. Students are well aware that such associate degree programs and technical certificates require skills that simply cannot be simulated.
It also appears that students are directly entering the workforce straight out of high school. Wages have increased for low-skilled workers and many high school graduates are moving into the workplace.
Despite higher pay for low-skilled jobs, this increase does not match the higher average pay achieved by an on-site four-year college education. If the million students lost in these last two years do not eventually return to college, most will still suffer lower lifetime wages.
This also impacts the nation. Having a million fewer workers with college credentials and skills to fill higher-paying jobs, the U.S. economy will suffer unless we hire even more college-educated international students.
Graduates to fill our gap in educated students would come from China and India. Due to shrinking populations, universities are consolidating or closing in Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.
East Asia has been far more effective in preventing shutdowns of educational institutions.
In the initial surge in February of 2020, fast action to halt transportation and instead stand-in-place, combined with massive testing and tracing using advanced cell phone technology brought the pandemic to a halt long before vaccines were available. The result was a return to safe schooling at both the K–12 and university levels. The school year was extended to take up most of the summer. The national high school leaving exam was pushed back one month. And when vaccines became available, China’s vaccination campaigns were massive and swift.
For nearly a year, China was able to suppress outbreaks that mainly came across borders with North Korea, Siberia, and Xinjiang, and via the Beijing airport. But the four-times more contagious Omicron strain has recently caused local lockdowns as well as spur-of-the-moment re-scheduling. Yet, unlike the major learning gaps suffered in Western K–12 schools as well as prolonged higher education degrees, China has not suffered the losses of students or gaps in learning that will pervade this generation of students in the West. Indeed, they are moving forward building additional new universities in south China.
The one major harm to their education efforts is their sealed borders. This has prevented their new high school graduates from flying out to Western universities that have accepted them. And many current overseas students are caught abroad, unable to return home. China is also a growing host country for international students, particularly from Africa and central Asia. Those students are likewise caught in a holding pattern.
Much of this difference in damage to the educational systems, severe in the West but mild in East Asia, boils down to two factors: concern for others and far greater respect for education.
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities in 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.