Covid-19 Response: Evidence of How Higher Ed Can Be Completely Restructured?

[spork]

College campus as food court:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/07/02/university-bridgeport-be-acquired-three-nearby-colleges.

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Geographically-based tuition differentials (in-state vs. out-of-state) might eventually go away:

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/shifting-geographies

:edit: make link clickable

[picard]

The always though provoking Dan Drezner has just penned this op-ed on The Washington Post, on how would the pandemic reshape the landscape of how American colleges and universities be run:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/06/im-college-professor-here-is-what-i-think-about-college-preparations-covid-19-this-fall/

"I have yet to see a viable university plan for reopening colleges for in-person instruction this fall. There have been a lot of variations of testing and tracing, or enforcing social distancing, or expanding the housing opportunities to make social distancing more possible. I credit university administrators for trying to make it work in a country that has abjectly failed at handling the novel coronavirus. That said, none of these plans seems to acknowledge that a) 18-year-olds will act like 18-year-olds; b) many of them are likely to be mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic spreaders of the virus; c) the question of a flare-up of cases on campus is not about "if" but about "when"; and d) quarantine and tracing procedures break down once a significant fraction of the student body is infected."

[apl68]

College campus as food court:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/07/02/university-bridgeport-be-acquired-three-nearby-colleges.

More on the Bridgeport situation at CHE:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/As-Colleges-Finances-Get/249134?cid=wcontentlist

[spork]

College campus as food court:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/07/02/university-bridgeport-be-acquired-three-nearby-colleges.

More on the Bridgeport situation at CHE:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/As-Colleges-Finances-Get/249134?cid=wcontentlist

Maybe it's not a "salvage operation," but it's probably pretty close. Goodwin, Sacred Heart, and Paier will absorb whatever pieces look profitable to them -- e.g., programs in allied health professions -- and say bye-bye to the rest. It's a case of relatively healthier wolves eating a sick antelope.

Regardless, I agree wholeheartedly with this editorial:

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/learning-innovation/most-important-higher-ed-story-still-online-degrees-scale

and disagree with much of this one:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/opinion/college-reopening-online-classes.html.

[spork]

Ivy League universities cancel all fall semester intercollegiate athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/sports/ncaafootball/ivy-league-fall-sports-football-coronavirus.html.

Let the great unbundling begin.

[Caracal]

Ivy League universities cancel all fall semester intercollegiate athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/sports/ncaafootball/ivy-league-fall-sports-football-coronavirus.html.

Let the great unbundling begin.

This sort of encapsulates this whole thread. Some people have a series of pet ideas and they seem convinced that this crisis is going to result in everyone adopting them. It doesn't seem to bother those people that nobody actually wants these things, or sees any advantage in adopting them outside of the immediate crisis.  Harvard isn't unbundling. Their fencing program will be back. Maybe everyone could promote their annoying ideas without seeming like they are so excited that all this death and disruption is going to lead to the glorious future of unbundling, vocational education, online instruction or whatever other fad they are peddling? Probably too much to ask.

[spork]

Stanford just killed its fencing teams. Along with several others. Why? The programs were projected to create $70 million in losses over the next three years.

[. . . ]

online instruction or whatever other fad

[. . . ]

You think online instruction is a fad? Have you talked to any university CFOs over the last twenty years? Take a look at the curriculum at, for example, Georgia Tech, Arizona State University, or Miami-Dade Community College.

[Caracal]

Stanford just killed its fencing teams. Along with several others. Why? The programs were projected to create $70 million in losses over the next three years.

Right, which has nothing to do with unbundling, whatever that means.

[Caracal]

You think online instruction is a fad? Have you talked to any university CFOs over the last twenty years? Take a look at the curriculum at, for example, Georgia Tech, Arizona State University, or Miami-Dade Community College.

Fad was the wrong word, substitute "hobby horse."

[spork]

It's 2022. What Does Life Look Like?

[Caracal]

It's 2022. What Does Life Look Like?

The main lesson from history is that people are very bad at predicting how ongoing crisis will reshape their world. They also tend to assume that whatever is happening is likely to reshape the world in ways that align with their beliefs and preconceived ideas. Most of these predictions end up being wrong.

[Wahoo Redux]

It's 2022. What Does Life Look Like?

A lot will depend on what happens in November.

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The Chronicle: "Will College Athletics Survive? Should They?"

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Will-College-Athletics/248956

Paywalled.

Note the expenditures vs. revenue data.

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"The only thing worse than sitting in a seminar room listening to three papers you actually don't want to hear is listening to three papers you don't want to hear over Zoom"