“Zoom University": An Agent of Disequilibrium in the Education Economy
Every fall, bright-eyed students put themselves through financial hurdles in pursuit of a college diploma. Their degree certifies that they are well-groomed and productive individuals ready to enter the labor force. The commitment to a four-year degree program that costs tens of thousands of dollars and a lifetime of student debt is based on students valuing their education at the level of the hefty tuition that colleges charge. However, COVID-19 has forced students nationwide to vacate campuses and complete their semesters online. This upheaval has caused significant reductions in learning potential that have simply driven the value of a college education below the cost that students have been covering.
An increasing number of students are considering taking a gap semester in the fall if courses continue to be held virtually, due to their unwillingness to pay the staggering tuition expenses for a substantially lower-quality educational experience. (Source: The Reveille, Louisiana State University)
When students enroll in college, they sign up to sharpen their minds. This does not happen while lounging around their living rooms attending “discussion” sessions for the sake of discussion, where students see video and mic-disabled blank screens in place of peers who contribute the non-verbal cues and free-flowing conversation that actually help to broaden thinking. For students in the sciences, it is almost impossible to gain the practical skills needed to conduct oneself in a lab. Moreover, many students find it difficult to muster the motivation to actually engage with any class content at home, especially given the low spirits that life in a pandemic has ensued. Many students also find themselves in turbulent home environments that make it difficult to manage their mental health, let alone a full course load.
Put simply, in the absence of any opportunities for extracurricular or social development, and with learning reduced to a fraction of its on-campus levels, the value of a college degree falls far below the rate colleges are charging, with many institutions still maintaining their on-campus tuition fees. This gives rise to a disequilibrium in the education economy, where students are constantly paying more than the value they’re getting out of an online education.
“While more prestigious institutions that tend to cater to students from privileged backgrounds might survive the economic downturn, many smaller/lower quality colleges that are situated in rural areas or cater to students coming from poorer academic backgrounds will go out of business due to their already limited funds and low reputability.”
Nonetheless, the educational environment in America wouldn’t look too peachy even if colleges were to completely stop charging tuition. If colleges have limited revenue, schools across the country would soon go bankrupt or have to reduce their operational capacity. While more prestigious institutions that tend to cater to students from privileged backgrounds might survive the economic downturn, many smaller or lower quality colleges that are situated in rural areas or cater to students coming from poorer academic backgrounds will go out of business due to their already limited funds and low reputability. The sudden, decreased absence of smaller local institutions would cut access to higher education for many Americans who choose to go to college, because it is convenient as the campus is nearby—meaning they don’t have to pay rent—or because there are less competitive schools around that are able to accept them.
This creates an inherent inequality in the education system, where only students with privileged educational backgrounds will come out of the coronavirus crisis still having consistent access to higher education. Moreover, even schools who would survive a hefty tuition reduction would have smaller budgets dedicated to financial aid, so fewer lower-income students would be accommodated—a grave issue given the surges in parental unemployment. Already, there have been declines in the number of students filling out FAFSA applications, as they no longer have the resources to guide them through the process in this state of quarantine, which weeds out those with the least access out of the financial aid-seeking process. If university funds dropped even further, paired with FAFSA filing deceases, a sweeping demographic inequality would emerge among education levels.
“Thus, it appears that students who are incurring high tuition costs despite low payoff in the present day are actually bearing the cost of maintaining an equitable education system for future generations.”
Thus, it appears that students who are incurring high tuition costs, despite low payoff in the present day, are actually bearing the cost of maintaining an equitable education system for future generations. The trade-off is between a life in disequilibrium for the current generation of students or decades of inequality for future students. Whether it is acceptable for current students to bear the brunt for the “greater good” of future society is a moral debate that is not mine to resolve. What is clear, however, given the lose-lose situation we’re facing, is that a compromise is needed on both ends for students and colleges.
This compromise could take the shape of a reduction of tuition to the minimal level that is needed to allow for future recovery, allowing for both the subsidization of current students and the provision of future ones.
The question remains: to fight for equilibrium or equality?
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