2020 Has Been A Hard Year For Higher Ed With 337,000 Jobs Lost. Could 2021 Be Worse?

Chronicle of Higher Education, 2020 Has Been a Hard Year for Higher Ed. Could 2021 Be Worse?:

Colleges are now starting to calculate the full costs of the coronavirus, including the fallout from declining enrollments and rising operating costs.

At places like Ithaca College, the impact of the pandemic is accelerating plans for major cuts in faculty jobs and academic programs. Beginning this spring, the college will begin to cut nearly a quarter of its 547 faculty members, said La Jerne T. Cornish, Ithaca’s provost.

The college’s undergraduate enrollment is 4,785 full-time students, more than 900 students fewer than a year ago, a decline of more than 16 percent, according to the college’s figures. At the same time, the college has a budget shortfall of $8 million because of increased operating costs — an amount that could grow before the end of the academic year, Cornish said.

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