My children are teenagers now, they are 16 and 13 years old. In recent years, weight sets have replaced Lego sets, video games have replaced board games and pins on Pinterest have replaced chalk on blackboards. Although my wife got almost all the emotional and important changes, it wasn’t until the boxing and handing over of our photo books that I began to ask, with a tear or two in my eye, “Is it me, or is it dusty in here?” To be clear, I have nothing against the young adult genre and I still have copies. I am the oldest of both Animal Farm again Lord of the Fliesbut, honestly, I miss the simplicity, sensitivity and imagery of fairy tales and children’s stories, maybe because the old saying is true: A picture is worth a thousand words.
Therefore, although hundreds of thousands of words have filled the Internet and printed books over the past decade in an attempt to explain the key challenges facing American higher education enrollment, the truth is that we can summarize it in three pictures and a short story: Cliff, Pandemic and Hurricane.
The Cliff
Once upon a time, there was a demographer named Nathan Grawe who lived in the far north of our beautiful country. One day, in his map-filled study at Carleton Castle, he looked into his crystal ball and saw something disturbing. When he looked closely, he saw that there was Cliff in the distance, posing a threat to the royal colleges. So, Sir Nathan rolled up his shiny ball, rolled up his maps and started walking through the countryside warning the leaders of what he had seen.
In boardrooms filled with fruit trays and cheese plates, he announced to trustees, presidents and legislators, “Watch out for 2025 and beyond! The Cliff is coming! Birth hunger is real! You need to change your ways now if you want to protect your campuses. There will not be an endless supply of traditional students in the future. The top of the funnel is narrowing!”
While others bury their heads in their hands or in the proverbial sand and are slow to make changes, many deans and admissions directors take out their pamphlets and start writing fancy documents called Strategic Enrollment Plans to prevent their college from falling off the next cliff. . Although these initiatives varied from campus to campus, they often included lobbying leaders to invest in a combination of the following strategies: stronger transfer agreements, dual enrollment and collaboration programs, expansion of online courses and degrees, recruitment of international students, and improved service to graduate students and alumni.
An epidemic
In the spring of 2020, while the campuses were strengthening their gates and guards were keeping their telescopes focused on the Cliff, a terrible disease swept the land. Like a thief in the night, COVID-19 came without warning and brought chaos, chaos and conflict to colleges, ultimately changing the postsecondary programs of thousands of American students. Classrooms, dormitories and residence halls were evacuated, quads turned into ghost towns, and the same leaders who had long-term plans to deal with Cliff’s weather now had to make real-time decisions about how to keep students healthy and safe while trying. significant budget implications for online course delivery and declining ancillary revenue.
However, in the end, although time was short, money was not. Far from the nation’s capital, Congress passed magical bills like the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which included the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. In total, HEERF has provided more than $14 billion in emergency funding to higher education, including more than $6 billion directly to students in the form of emergency grants.
As a result, dear reader, contrary to the apocalyptic rhetoric you’re bound to find in the dark corners of the interwebs, for-profit college closings (made and planned) have averaged just over one per month as of 2020. However, state scholars do not know. , there were more challenges.
A storm
As campuses welcome their students in the fall of 2023, dark clouds begin to cover the horizon. The winds picked up and brought word of the slow—no, hurricane—FAFSA form.
Students and families waited patiently. October arrived—but no FAFSA. Halloween and Thanksgiving gave way to winter break and still no FAFSA. Alas, it wasn’t until our Lord’s Day, December 30, 2023, that the FAFSA arrived. And with it, chaos, disorder and chaos from every corner of the world.
All spring the FAFSA storm blew. Technology failed, the Department of Education floundered, financial aid directors complained and no student donations were mailed.
In high-quality, well-equipped, nationally prominent institutions, orders were sent after a rush: “Use the gift! Make way for a CSS profile! Keep the oil lamps lit for the tired financial aid workers!” However, at universities that serve high numbers of low- and middle-income students, reserves and financial aid staff have been in short supply. Despite the best efforts of the weather-weary workers, the storm waters continued to rise and an onslaught of federal failures and failures dampened morale and enlistment prospects.
Compounding and confounding the problem, this happened as COVID relief dollars were drying up, and unlike during the Pandemic, there was no other injection of federal money to provide students with timely financial aid.
And that brings us, reader, to today…
The eye
Summer news coverage described something called the “closing FAFSA completion gap”—from a year-over-year shortfall of 40 percent in the spring to recent reports putting that number at less than 10 percent. Yet the news of hope and light may just be a sign that we are in the eye of the storm, because just as there was a significant time lapse between the opening of the FAFSA and colleges receiving student data, there is a similar chasm between completing the FAFSA and the student. actually getting help and therefore gaining the confidence needed to start college. As a result, I fear that the state’s community colleges and accessible private colleges may see a significant drop in enrollment when the census totals are published later this fall.
With the Cliff’s Edge and the combined dollars of the pandemic now gone, the Hurricane is likely to accelerate drastic measures in the coming year (layoffs, layoffs, asset sales, etc.) as it exits the Eye and enters. winds and rains too.
Preparing for the Storm
Jeremy Singer, who is currently on loan from the College Board to the Department of Education, revealed that this year’s FAFSA will not be open to all students on October 1, but promises to launch on December 1 soon. However, in the meantime, many financial aid directors in our case suspect the statement from the Ministry of Education announcers.
What it should next year?
- At the campus level: The past year has demonstrated the urgent need for institutions to invest in their financial aid information systems and staffing. (See: Financial aid directors raise eyebrows at hope of smooth aid year.)
- At the state level: Continued efforts to promote FAFSA completion for graduating seniors and higher education budget analysis, particularly around comprehensive financial aid programs.
- At the federal level: Continued advocacy to increase the number of Pell Grants and increase funding for the Office of Federal Student Aid.
- At the Department of Education: In true fairy tale style, lock whoever is working on fixing the FAFSA in a tower and throw away the key until they’re done; investing in integrated programs to reduce the burden of applying for government financial assistance; integrate AI assistance within FAFSA to facilitate accuracy and timeliness.
While our story begins with a writer looking to the future, historians may look back on the confluence of Cliff, the pandemic and the hurricane as a story of how the landscape of higher education changed forever.
The good news is that I have a box full of easy children’s books in my garage if you want to borrow them.
The conclusion
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