Will anyone mourn the end of the 2023-2024 admission cycle, if in fact it ever ends? The sportscaster Jim Nantz loves to describe the Masters golf tournament as a “tradition unlike any other.” For colleges this year has been a year unlike any other.
That, of course, begins with the fiasco (fiasco is probably not a strong enough description) surrounding the rollout of a new version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The problems with the FAFSA proved once again that things advertised as “new and improved” are rarely both.
We know that financial aid professionals continue to be stretched thin and stressed out from having to process the new FAFSA Student Aid Index under a time crunch. We know that admission offices at tuition-driven institutions are trying to meet budget goals without full information for applicants requiring financial aid to attend college, and that deposits are running behind at a number of places.
We also know that there are a number of colleges whose very existence is in jeopardy. Ten days ago the University of the Arts in Philadelphia announced without warning that it would close, joining other colleges including venerable places like Birmingham Southern in Alabama, founded in 1856, and Wells College in Upstate New York, which dates back to 1868. I previously wrote about Birmingham Southern, which since closing on May 31 has become the answer to a trivia question. Its baseball team made the College World Series for Division 3 (including eliminating my alma mater), meaning that its baseball team outlived the institution.
Wealthy, elite colleges and universities that don’t have to worry about making their classes have had their own issues this spring in the form of student unrest and protests arising from the situation in Israel and Gaza. I talked with an admission dean friend earlier this year who talked about his staff members being hesitant to come into the office because of demonstrators taking over campus spaces located next to the campus welcome center, and I know counselors who report that some Jewish parents will not allow their children to consider certain elite universities where they perceive that there is a strong streak of anti-Semitism.
The undercurrent of hate in the protests is troubling and hard to fathom. Is this another consequence of the impact of COVID on this generation of students’ educational experience during high school and college? I have certainly observed an increased emotional fragility in my students since 2020, perhaps a sign that COVID impacted their emotional development far more than their educational development. Do students have an inability to deal with moral complexity? Is the selective admissions process a contributing factor? That’s a discussion for another time.
While the issues on the college side of the profession have received the most attention, college counselors in schools face new challenges in advising students. The immediate focus this past year has been in trying to support students facing problems in filing the FAFSA, but there are also counseling challenges posed by the changing landscape of higher education. For example, there are an increasing number of universities that admit applicants but not for the main campus they applied for. Northeastern University’s satellite campus in Oakland (what used to be Mills College) may be located in the northeastern part of the San Francisco bay area, but isn’t exactly what students hoping to attend Northeastern are expecting. Penn State satellite campuses like Hazleton and Ogontz (today Abington) are not the same as Happy Valley.
While college closures have received the most attention, there are a number of other institutions that are eliminating jobs and programs. On May 30 the University of Lynchburg in Virginia announced that it was cutting 40 staff positions effective immediately, including five of nine VP positions, and also phasing out twelve undergraduate programs and five graduate programs. Brandeis is cutting 60 positions, and Delta State in Mississippi plans to eliminate 21 of 61 academic programs, including English, history, and chemistry.
Those retrenchments in academic offerings and staffing have immediate and real consequences for the students and employees impacted, but they also impact college counselors. Trying to help students find the right college fit now requires knowledge about the financial health and viability of colleges in a way it hasn’t. That’s challenging because the information tends to be closely guarded by struggling colleges and universities.
Last fall I met with a senior who was seriously considering depositing at a small college where his credentials would have placed him among the top students. There is certainly an argument to be made for going to that kind of situation. In many ways the college was a perfect fit. It was located geographically close to property owned by his family in a place he loves and may want to settle permanently. He would receive a significant merit scholarship, would be able to play a sport in college, and had made a connection with a professor in his area of interest who might serve as a mentor for him academically.
I wanted to have a conversation on two fronts. I supported his reasons for being interested in the college, but worried about whether he would be challenged academically, and encouraged him to spend several days on campus attending classes and seeing how he fit academically with the students there. I also wondered about how stable the place was financially, but my research didn’t reveal any issues. He ended up picking a different place that was a good fit for him in different ways.
Good college counseling requires knowing your students, knowing the right questions to ask, and knowing what’s happening at colleges. That’s more challenging than ever before in a time of social and financial unrest, a year unlike any other. Let’s hope that what we’ve encountered this year isn’t the new normal.