COVID-19 Impact on the US Academic Market

When I was invited to give my opinion about how I see the pandemic changing US education for this issue of the Education Society’s newsletter, I had a view of what I intended to say. One and a half weeks later, that view has already changed due to events playing out daily in the higher education community. For example, two weeks ago many institutions were already announcing plans to resume in-person classes and residential experiences for the autumn semester, yet just this week the sizable California State University System announced that most of its classes will be conducted online this autumn. Will instruction in the US predominantly remain online for the autumn semester, or will we see a significant return to in-person classes? It is difficult to ascertain the best path forward when there is a significant lack of consensus among our leaders. There is quite a bit of uncertainty regarding the course of the pandemic and, by necessity, the changes it will force on US colleges and universities. Some of the trends and impacts are clear: the anticipation of lower enrollments and tuition shortfalls, cuts in state appropriations to public institutions, market-driven losses to endowments, declines in philanthropic giving, and generally lost revenue from a variety of sources. The economic forces at play present an existential threat to some institutions and dire predictions abound for widespread insolvencies. We are already seeing the financial consequences, such as furloughs and elimination of positions, hiring and salary freezes, and general cost-cutting. When our institutions return to in-person instruction, how do we implement effective COVID-19 testing protocols to ensure a healthy campus community? What social distancing safeguards will we put into practice? How will the on-campus residential experience be impacted? I wish I knew the answers. What I do believe is that we will come through this crisis by learning from each other and sharing knowledge of best practices. Now more than ever, the Education Society is in a unique position to provide meaningful support to our engineering and computing education community.

James (Jim) J. Sluss, Jr. Ph.D.
Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Tulsa Graduate College
Regents’ Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering
President Emeritus, IEEE Education Society
The University of Oklahoma - Tulsa