COVID-19 PANDEMIC IS ABOUT TO RUIN THE SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE USA

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit many sectors of the economy, can make the universities of the US and UK file for bankruptcy. This is the conclusion of the Western analysts who study the state of the Western universities during the period of forced isolation.     

As the foreign observer Henry Kamens notes, the American and British students who have been forced to overpay for educational services that are becoming less and less useful may soon change their behavioral standards. What can the management of the leading universities do in this situation?

Kamens describes the American higher education system as a form of fraud, pointing to a low return on the investment in it, which is different from what the advertisement says.   

The fact is that many universities in the US and Great Britain are organized as large HR corporations that sell the promise of good employment to their clients.

At the same time, it costs a lot of money, and forces the future students to get into debt, take out loans, and make savings. At the same time, the labor market continues to decline rapidly, and the pandemic has only accelerated this process.

During the period of increasing incidence of coronavirus infection, the majority of the foreign universities were faced with the need to transfer the students to a remote learning format. Thus, the educational organizations have actually lost a number of competitive advantages. In particular, it concerns the possibility of informal communication of students with each other, in the process of which the social ties that are useful for future careers are established.  

The COVID-19 infection has played a special role for two groups of the population. The first is the international students, many of whom were cut off from their homes. The closure of borders and the cessation of air traffic have led to the need to literally "stuck" in the student campuses, making the special permits to stay there.

Only 5% of students in US universities are foreigners. However, they annually contribute about $ 44 billion to the US economy, paying an average of about $ 35 thousand for studies and another $ 20 thousand for food and accommodation.

Funding models for the higher education institutions depend on how balanced the payment of services rendered by the foreign students is.

The second group is the graduates, who were left without usual rituals of farewell ceremonies, and public events with the delivery of diplomas. Traditional job fairs were not held in universities, which became a problem for the business communities. The students themselves had many problems associated with the inability to go home during the quarantine period.

Many people may not want to pay a lot of money for the opportunity to study remotely in the new academic year.

As a result, the foreign experts come to the conclusion that it is necessary to reconsider the financial models which are held for the universities in the United States and Great Britain. An example is Oxford, which was forced to issue the debt securities worth a billion pounds three years ago, and after a while to issue additional bonds, bringing the amount of debt to £ 3 billion.