Can a Residential College Sell an Online Experience in a Crisis?

"With financial losses mounting the longer campuses are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, securing tuition dollars for next academic year is a top priority for colleges.

That may be difficult. Students and their families who have experienced job layoffs, furloughs or pay cuts—or whose college savings plummeted with the stock market—may have new difficulty paying for higher education.

And if public health conditions don’t improve over the summer, even students who can still afford college may be reluctant to pay full price for virtual classes instead of the in-person experience they were expecting. Students have already filed lawsuits and circulated petitions making the case that the value of their education has diminished without access to their campuses.

Few colleges have committed publicly to keeping facilities closed come autumn, but experts say most are working on contingency plans for that possibility. For residential institutions whose identities are closely bound to physical experiences—a grassy quad lined with stately trees, an uproarious football stadium, a dorm full of friends—moving college online and convincing students to pay for it will be a challenge.

To pull it off, leaders of residential colleges are considering alternative instruction models, new tuition policies and different recruiting strategies." …

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-04-23-can-a-residential-college-sell-an-online-experience-in-a-crisis