Driving on Route 517 in rural Tranquility, New Jersey, I noticed an interesting sign,
“what you are not changing, you are choosing.”
I thought what a great message for individuals who consistently complain about personal situations which can be changed. My immediate contrary thought was that during the pandemic, being able to change many things is impossible.
Nobody has the REMOTEST idea what education this school year will be like in reality. It is VIRTUALLY impossible to analyze all the possibilities.
Not to worry; I will ZOOM in on the K-college education news flow of the past two months and attempt to put the information in different buckets.
DEPRESSING
*Rising mental health issues across all age levels
*Lower income and minority populations being hurt much more than affluent and white households
*Students already struggling academically being further damaged by remote learning
*The absence of Fall sports, important for a myriad of reasons
*The inability of differing viewpoints to be voiced on many college campuses
*Not being able to copy the beneficial virus approaches of other countries with respect to young people
*Being quarantined at college, coupled with dorm and meal restrictions
*How few in-person virus cases it will take to cause large revisions in the whole approach to school
*Students who flaunt mask and distancing rules at parties, putting all at risk
IRRITATING
*Politicians at every level
*The collapse in internship opportunities
*Testing little kids over zoom when they should be outside playing and learning more important things
*Colleges, a $600 billion business, resisting their need to cut costs.
*Affluent people accenting education inequality by creating learning pods and hiring teachers
*Sickness rates rising, for those trapped at home or school when teachers rotate but not the kids
*Expensive digital access codes for on-line material
*A sharp reduction in job offers for MBA students
CHAOTIC
*Wide variation in approaches to instruction and safety as schools reopen
*Teachers simultaneously having in-person students and others in their homes
*The inability to do proper contact tracing because of noncompliance when people are called
*The scramble for help, whether it be Chegg or Khan Academy or whomever
*Varying rules about quarantining college students arriving from other states
*Differing information about virus susceptibility of various age groups
*OMG, how will there be college football
OK, TO BE FAIR, THERE IS SOME POSITIVE STUFF – in complete sentences
*Student debt payments for federal loans can be deferred through December 31.
*Forced to provide more on-line education, improvements are being made in the process.
*More people realize college is not for everyone, that learning a marketable skill is a worthy aspiration.
*Fraternities and sororities will either have to reform or they will be banned from campuses.
*Greater analysis is being done on how well-meaning colleges actually perpetuate racial divisions.
*With no growth in enrollment, colleges are slowly becoming more competitive.
*The semi-scam which is for-profit off campus housing has taken a deserved economic hit.
*More attention is being paid to the qualitative aspects of a college application.
*There is more questioning: why pay exorbitant tuition when there is no college experience available.
*Greater scrutiny is happening concerning “legacy” admission policies.
*There is more interest by employers in hiring for skills rather relying on the credibility of a diploma.
IN THE “DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH’ CATEGORY – BUT REGISTER TO VOTE ANYWAY
This is the trillion dollar Biden plan regarding student debt: (1) $10,000 in debt cancelled for 43 million federal loan recipients, (2) borrowers earning less than $125,000 would have undergraduate debt forgiven if incurred at a public college or a minority-serving non-profit college, (3) borrowers could pay 5% of discretionary income toward debt, instead of 10%, with the balance forgiven tax-free after 20 years, and (4) increased Pell Grants.
IN THE ‘UNRELATED TO THE PANDEMIC’ CATEGORY BUT QUITE IMPORTANT
It is worth noting and repeating that there is continuous growth in the availability of on-point cost/benefit data that a student might want to use to make informed cost/benefit decisions on a major, a college, and a career. Included in the incremental information and the decision-making process is the understanding that subject matter and specific programs within a given school can be more relevant and rewarding than the name over the college gate.
FINALE
Enough already – you, the reader of the above collection of observations, are on your way to earning a societally valued credential, regardless of your grade or semester level. You should be proud of your accomplishments and, maybe even more importantly in these challenging times, your level of perseverance. Staying focused on the task at hand is job one, not trying to figure out how the world will look when you move up a year in age.