Most Colleges With In-Person Classes Didn’t Use Surveillance Testing This Spring
The majority of four-year, bachelor’s-degree-granting colleges that held classes in-person this term didn’t do any surveillance testing for the coronavirus, according to newly published data. Thirteen percent of such colleges didn’t mention testing on their websites at all.
A Big Budget From Biden
On Friday, President Biden released his request to the Senate for fiscal year 2022 discretionary funding, also known as the “skinny budget,” because details will follow. The document requests several funding increases for higher education. The plan requires congressional approval, and congressional Republicans will likely object to some of the president’s chosen investments.
Texas and Utah Bar Public Colleges From Requiring Covid-19 Vaccines
As a small but growing number of colleges announce that they’ll require students to get a Covid-19 vaccine, two state governments have prohibited their public colleges from doing so. Utah legislators enacted a law forbidding government agencies — including public colleges — to require people to receive a Covid-19 vaccine. Private businesses and colleges may still have vaccine mandates. The law drew nearly unanimous approval from legislators, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. Gov. Spencer Cox signed it in March. Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed an executive order that also prevents public colleges from requiring a Covid shot.
Transfer Enrollment Drops
The number of students transferring between colleges continued to decline this spring, dropping nearly 8 percent across all transfer pathways between and among different two-year and four-year institutions. Community colleges have seen especially steep transfer enrollment declines this semester, while the number of students transferring from two-year colleges to four-year institutions increased slightly, a new National Student Clearinghouse Research Center report shows.
Here’s a List of Colleges That Will Require Students to Be Vaccinated Against Covid-19
As colleges look toward the fall-2021 semester, they’re grappling with whether to require — or just strongly encourage — students to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Here’s a list of institutions that have decided to require students to be vaccinated in order to enroll this fall…
How Can State Funding Models Incentivize Equity?
Funding public colleges and universities based on outcome or performance metrics has its share of critics who think the policies are ineffective or harmful — especially for institutions that serve a large number of minority and low-income students. But experts at one equity-focused think tank say outcome-based funding models are worth trying to redeem. More than 30 states currently use outcome- or performance-based funding models to tie at least some public higher education funding to institutional performance metrics like enrollment, retention and graduation rates. Years of research have shown that these models often fail to achieve their goals.
Colleges Now Produce Fewer Black Graduates in Math and Engineering
Black enrollment in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math — is among the issues that urgently demand attention, said Cato Laurencin, CEO of the Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science. “We need to move from talking about the issue of Blacks in STEM and systemic racism to making concrete changes,” Laurencin said. The proportion of bachelor’s degrees in science awarded to Black graduates remained flat at about 9 percent from 2001 to 2016, according to the most recent available figures from the National Science Foundation; in engineering, it declined from 5 percent to 4 percent; and in math, it dropped from 7 percent to 4 percent.
Community Colleges Face a Long Road to Recovery
Tracy D. Hall figured that spring enrollment would be down compared with fall. As president of Southwest Tennessee Community College, in Memphis, she knew that even in ordinary times a fair number of students just don’t come back after their first semester. Given that the headcount for the fall of 2020 at Southwest Tennessee had plunged by 19 percent from the previous fall due to Covid-19, she braced for the worst. And it was bad. This spring, Southwest Tennessee enrolled 6,069 students, down from 7,811 in the fall, a drop of 22 percent.
Here’s a List of Colleges That Will Require Students to Be Vaccinated Against Covid-19
As colleges look toward the fall-2021 semester, they’re grappling with whether to require — or just strongly encourage — students to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Here’s a list of institutions that have decided to require students to be vaccinated in order to enroll this fall…
