Daily Lumina News 052020

The disrupted spring term has offered many lessons to college leaders trying to plan for the fall. But one unheralded takeaway: The powerful role incidental and impromptu interactions play in the college experience—and how hard it is to replace them.

Overnight, many of the most useful tools and tactics employed by college admissions officers were swept off the table because of the coronavirus. No more campus visits. No more widely shared and commonly observed deadlines. No more predictive models carefully calibrated using years of granular data to predict the size of the entering class in the fall.
Admissions leaders explain how they are now reaching potential students in this volatile new environment.

Even before the pandemic arrived, colleges and universities in the United States were under stress from declining government support and rising skepticism about the value of a college degree. Now they face a perfect storm of economic downturn: less state support, financially needier students, and quite possibly a shrinking freshman class.

The class of 2020 is stepping out into an utterly transformed world. On this episode of On Point, recent college graduates talk about their hopes and fears as they try to launch their lives and careers. Plus, those who work with graduates offer advice on landing a job amid a pandemic.