The Higher Ed Dive Outlook on 2021

We're all hoping some degree of pre-pandemic life will return in 2021. But for higher education, many of the trends that dominated storylines in 2020 will continue into this year. We've rounded up a few below and will be following them throughout the year.

Will enrollment bounce back?

Colleges collectively enrolled about 560,000 fewer undergraduates during the fall of 2020, a 3.6% decrease from the year before. The losses were much steeper at community colleges and among first-time students. While the pandemic hasn't been found to have had a negative effect on overall high school graduation rates, low-income schools and those with high shares of Black and Hispanic students sent far fewer graduates to college for fall 2020. The number of international students at U.S. colleges also tanked.

What's next? Enrollment experts predict the impact of the losses will reverberate, and they are watching whether more displaced workers will show up at colleges in 2021. But college applications and federal financial aid requests for fall 2021 were lagging where they were a year ago as of early December 2020, according to national data, suggesting lower enrollment levels may continue.

What will the Biden administration's higher ed priorities be?

President-elect Joe Biden has promised to make community college — and, for some students, a four-year degree from a public institution — tuition-free. He has also said he'd invest heavily in minority-serving institutions and toughen restrictions on for-profit colleges. Other items on his campaign platform include doubling the Pell Grant and devising a new way to fund colleges that educate high shares of low-income students.

What's next? Biden is selecting his leadership team. He announced Miguel Cardona as his pick for Education Secretary. Cardona comes from a K-12 background, but yet-to-be-announced deputy appointees will help guide the department's higher ed policy. 

Can colleges bring more students back to campus?

Public health experts are hopeful the availability of coronavirus vaccines means reopening campuses is on the horizon, they told Higher Ed Dive in December 2020. But continued testing for the virus will be critical, and many colleges bringing students to campus this spring say they're ramping up those efforts. 

What's next? It's too soon to ditch the facemasks. The U.S. is only in the early stages of vaccine distribution, so COVID-19 safety measures will be necessary for some time, experts said. Vaccines are expected to be widely available by mid-2021, but recent polls found that only around 60% of people would get the shots. Scientists are also still researching how contagious vaccinated people are when they contract the virus.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in late December that he is "cautiously optimistic" college campuses will be able to reopen this fall.

Are the SAT and ACT a thing of the past?

When SAT and ACT exam sites closed or reduced capacity because of the coronavirus, hundreds of colleges put a moratorium on the requirement. That added fuel to the already brewing movement to make the tests optional or remove the requirement altogether. In May 2020, exam makers were dealt another blow: The University of California System said it would phase out the tests in admissions. A court ruling that fall accelerated the plan.

What's next: The difficulty offering the exams continued into the fall, and some colleges have extended their test-optional policies. But the tests are important to their makers' business models, in part because they sell the student data back to colleges. The new head of the national college admissions trade group said in June 2020 he would try to work with the testing companies, calling the moment "the perfect storm for reinvention."

How much will online learning stick around?

Colleges moved courses almost entirely online during the span of a few weeks last year. Some brought back in-person instruction for fall 2020 and spring 2021. But online learning experts say the pandemic accelerated a long-running push for colleges to offer more instruction virtually. 

There appears to be an appetite for it. More traditional-age students were enrolling in online-only schools before the pandemic.

What's next: The companies that help colleges offer online programs are seeing an uptick in business. And more course-sharing consortia emerged during the pandemic, giving schools a less-intensive way to expand their online footprints. 

These trends may not help the sector bounce back from recent enrollment declines, however. Data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows significant enrollment drop-offs during the fall of 2020 in programs at two-year schools, such as in culinary services and mechanic and repair programs. That could be because those courses are difficult to offer online, Doug Shapiro, the center's director, told reporters in December 2020.

Other topics on our radar include the effects of pandemic-induced budget cuts at colleges nationwide, the impact of more coronavirus relief funding and the increasing collective action among college employees.

Angel Pérez, head of the top college admissions association, got an email in the fall of 2020 after his group sponsored its first-ever online fair, which the pandemic made virtual by necessity. A student thanked Pérez, writing that they'd been exposed to institutions they wouldn't have otherwise. 

It was an "aha!" moment for Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. To him, it was evidence that although many hallmarks of the college recruitment cycle had been absent for months, the options arising in their place were generally more accessible. 

A slew of largely digital recruitment tactics have emerged from the turbulence of the health crisis, shaking a college enrollment landscape that was already evolving. Colleges were anticipating a drop-off in high school graduates. And under pressure from the Justice Department, NACAC in 2019 loosened its recruitment guidelines, weakening the significance of historical admissions deadlines and giving institutions license to poach students past those dates.

Enrollment professionals expect long-term recruitment plans will fuse new digital tools with the mainstays. They are quick to note, though, that nothing will replace the personal touch of a student connecting with a professor on a tour or falling in love with campus. And while social media can enable them to cast a wider net, the digital divide persists and was exacerbated by the pandemic. Institutions also must understand the nuances of platforms like Twitter and video-sharing service TikTok to get the results they want.

But Pérez knows one thing is certain: "The digitization of this process is here to stay."

A new online frontier

The coronavirus hit the college admissions cycle at a particularly inopportune time. Students generally pick their colleges by May 1, and a push to woo them defines the preceding months. Institutions were not only attempting to meet their enrollment benchmarks, which the pandemic made much more unstable, but they were also grappling with deep auxiliary revenue shortfalls. 

Colleges widely took their recruiting virtual. Tours and welcome days were translated into online formats. Social media strategies were rethought. 

NACAC hasn't yet quantified how prevalent such tactics were, but its 2019 State of College Admission report notes that enrollment officials consider hosting campus visits to be one of the most important methods of connecting with first-time freshmen. These were by and large impossible to host in the early months of the crisis as areas went into lockdown.

"They've relied on that college visit to turn applicants into enrolled students," said Sara Harberson, author of the book "Soundbite: The Admissions Secret That Gets You Into College and Beyond," which publishes in April 2021, and a former admissions professional at the University of Pennsylvania and Franklin & Marshall College. 

NACAC instead converted its traditional college fair into a virtual one in September 2020, drawing 30,000 students, Pérez said. There, they could venture into online "rooms" where college representatives would present information about their schools. Admissions officials might have conversations with individual students or give a group an overview of campus, he said. NACAC is continuing its online fairs, with some specific to regions or interests, such as STEM or the arts.

Colleges are rethinking the campus tour, too. Although many filmed these excursions pre-pandemic for students to watch online, more have also started hosting live-streamed versions, Harberson said. 

Student ambassadors are also popular in admissions, selling prospective students on the magic of college and answering questions from an on-the-ground perspective. Institutions brought these students into Zoom rooms, sometimes along with faculty and even governing board members, who weren't likely to participate in recruiting before the crisis, Pérez said.

Although digital events can reach more students, some are still left out without reliable access to the internet and devices. But Pérez expects the popularity of these online exchanges means NACAC and colleges will keep them going following the health crisis.

Reaching students

For now, many students remain isolated and "hungry" for interaction, said Madeleine Rhyneer, vice president of consulting services and dean of enrollment management at consultancy EAB. So keen are they for contact that some legacy outreach methods that might not have even been considered before the crisis — like calling students directly — are working, she said.

This is part of the hypercompetitive environment the pandemic fostered, Rhyneer said. 

Colleges are trying more fervently to cater to prospective students' needs as an acknowledgment of their struggles and to fill seats. This might involve being available for digital appointments on the fly or setting them up at odd hours, a trend she expects will persist.

"There's a return to a much more personal approach that's very targeted to this generation," Rhyneer said. "They want to know, you're talking to me, not 300 other people."

A personalized touch is evident at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts. Andrew Palumbo, the assistant vice president for enrollment management and dean of admissions and financial aid, said his institution has tried to account for barriers, such as by permanently nixing its $70 application fee. The college's financial aid officers also have standing time slots available to answer questions online, Palumbo said. And the college made sure its digital recruitment programming — webinars, panels — was available to students in as many time zones as possible.     

The college incurred new costs: a platform for digital content, web development and an increase in video production and closed captioning to ensure its accessibility, he said. 

Savings came from not holding events or traveling, but the institution also ended up with "unbudgeted" expenses: little perks like T-shirts and lawn signs announcing the class of 2024's enrollment decisions. Palumbo didn't specify how much money the college spent.

Though institutions, particularly admissions offices, tend to be cash-strapped, Palumbo hopes they will figure out how to pay for a blend of online and conventional recruitment tactics. Having many virtual methods of recruitment also alleviates some of the grueling travel admissions officials undertake.

WPI's system isn't perfect at bridging the digital dive, he said. "But this really increases the amount of schools we can ‘stop' at," Palumbo said. "We don't have to use that time to travel. We can be in California, we can be in Oklahoma. … It's a great opportunity to recruit students who desperately need college support this year."

Barriers remain

Once applicants are aware of a school, they need help navigating the admissions process, which is especially true during the pandemic. In a jarring twist for some students, most four-year institutions have discontinued entrance exam requirements for those starting in fall 2021. Several high-profile institutions, including Cornell, Columbia and Harvard universities, have already extended their test-optional policies. 

But applicants aren't completely buying the idea that they don't need to take the tests — to the point that NACAC called on institutions to publicly affirm they won't penalize students who don't provide scores. Most colleges that did away with the tests for a time prior to the pandemic haven't reverted back. 

Also, the traditional deadlines for picking a school are becoming less rigid. This can be a positive development, Pérez noted, as it gives students and families more time to plan for college. 

But he is also concerned colleges will use flashy incentives to get students to commit to enrolling earlier than usual, which he said could prematurely curtail their college searches. This was notoriously attempted at North Carolina's High Point University in 2019, when administrators dangled priority housing, course scheduling, prime parking and early move-in slots for students who applied and committed early there.

However, Harberson, the former admissions leader, said students and families could benefit from being able to press for perks such as more merit aid, especially in light of the economic instability. 

Colleges must also find ways to stand out to students amid the onslaught of marketing they're exposed to, said Julian Vasquez Heilig, professor and dean of the University of Kentucky's College of Education. 

Applicants don't want digitized versions of stereotypical brochures showing students throwing a frisbee on a sunlit knoll, Vasquez Heilig said. They want to see colleges telling important stories, he noted, especially in light of movements like the fight for racial justice that was reinvigorated during the summer of 2020. Vasquez Heilig cited the university's civil rights and education initiative with the NAACP as an example of the type of program to promote among prospective students. 

He said that partnership could have appealed to applicants like those entering the College of Education, many of whom are interested in correcting racial injustices. The university's attempts to bring in those students appear to be working. The College of Education admitted 600 students two years ago, and it's up 200 more for the 2020-21 academic year, he said. 

It will be key for colleges to hire staff who will prioritize this type of work, and to take the time to grasp the subtleties of the different digital platforms, Vasquez Heilig said. TikTok is meant to be more creative, and often lighter and humorous, he noted, while Twitter is more of a straightforward communication tool. 

"How do you create content for that platform? How do you work with their algorithms? It takes a lot of sophistication," he said. "We have a limited amount of time to appeal to these students, so we have to be very strategic."

Historically Black colleges saw a significant uptick in donations during 2020, and several of the Biden administration's campaign proposals pledged them additional funding. Higher education experts say these schools are poised to build on that momentum in 2021. 

More than a dozen HBCUs recently attracted the interest of billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who donated some $500 million to the sector. President-elect Joe Biden has also pitched billions in new funding for HBCUs, as well as other higher education policies that could benefit these schools. 

Yet funding challenges remain. Like much of higher ed, the coronavirus pandemic is forcing HBCUs to pay for campus safety measures and invest in online learning. The health crisis has also sapped states' coffers, and some are looking to pull support from public colleges to fill their budget holes. 

Here, we look at five HBCU funding trends to watch this year. 

Megadonors' interest in HBCUs grows

HBCUs don't usually receive the size of donations to which Ivy League universities and other affluent colleges are accustomed, but they've recently been attracting more interest from megadonors. HBCUs received at least 31 gifts worth $1 million or more during 2020, according to Higher Ed Dive's analysis of data from The Chronicle of Philanthropy. That's compared to just two in 2017, Inside Philanthropy found. 

Spelman and Morehouse colleges, in Georgia, and UNCF, an organization that awards scholarships and lobbies on behalf of private HBCUs, received $40 million each in June 2020 from Patty Quillin and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. The funds will be used for scholarships. A few months later, Bloomberg Philanthropies pledged $26 million to the Morehouse School of Medicine, in Georgia. 

Although the medical school averages $10 million in gifts annually, it has raised four times that amount so far this fiscal year, said Bennie Harris, the school's senior vice president of institutional advancement. 

The worldwide protests for racial justice following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, along with how the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately harmed some communities of color, have amplified the school's mission, Harris added. 

Other higher ed experts echoed those comments. "People are wanting to give because they want to see us break some of these systems that prevent the success of many individuals," said Rob Henry, vice president of education at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. "This is why we see this kind of giving to historically Black colleges and universities and other (minority-serving institutions)."

MacKenzie Scott could inspire others

Scott, the former wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, grabbed headlines when she gave away more than $4 billion of her fortune during 2020. A large chunk of those funds — around $500 million — went to HBCUs, according to a Washington Post analysis. 

For several schools, the gifts were their largest yet. That includes Maryland's Morgan State University, which is putting most of the $40 million it received toward its endowment. And Virginia's Hampton University, which received $30 million, is exploring using some of the funds for scholarships. 

Scott's donations are unusual beyond their size, however. In a blog post on Medium, Scott wrote that she gave the money upfront and "with full trust and no strings attached." That approach can be "transformational" for the recipients, said Harry Williams, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which lobbies on behalf of public HBCUs. 

Higher education experts agree that Scott may inspire other deep-pocketed donors to buck the status quo. Most foundations and corporations restrict funds for specific purposes, Williams said. "What she did was completely outside of the box." 

Small campaigns are taking off

Some HBCUs are getting more small donations as well. Morehouse School of Medicine, for instance, has raised $400,000 in smaller gifts, nearly reaching its annual target of $500,000 only halfway through the fiscal year. 

Grambling State University, in Louisiana, found similar success. It raised more than $400,0000, double its goal, in a campaign in late 2020. Kestrel Linder, CEO of online fundraising platform GiveCampus, which Grambling State used, said the campaign was likely successful because it focused on the impact donors could make on students' academic success. 

HBCUs "help level the playing field for students with diverse backgrounds, who have historically been locked out of vital opportunities," Linder said. "That's a message that people care about a lot right now."

Coronavirus relief is coming to HBCUs

The second major coronavirus relief package gives $23 billion to colleges, an amount the American Council on Education called "wholly adequate." The group has asked Congress for at least $120 billion to offset lost revenue and new expenses because of the pandemic. 

Of the higher ed aid, $1.7 billion was carved out for HBCUs and other MSIs. This new funding has helped "backfill" some of the money colleges spent to quickly move online, but the need for support is ongoing, Williams said. TMCF plans to ask lawmakers for more infrastructure funding. 

The relief package was passed along with another measure that eliminates $1.3 billion in debt incurred by HBCUs through a federal capital financing program. That will free up resources for colleges to spend on their priorities, said Terrell Strayhorn, director of the Center for the Study of HBCUs at Virginia Union University. 

"You'll start to see HBCUs using their dollars to stand up new programs (and) to recruit more competitively for faculty," Strayhorn said. 

Biden's big plans for higher ed

Biden has said he'd create large pots of new funding for HBCUs and other MSIs. Those include $10 billion to create at least 200 new centers of excellence, $20 billion for infrastructure and $10 billion for student success initiatives.

Other big campaign proposals, if they come to fruition, could also benefit HBCUs. Biden pitched a funding system for higher education akin to the Title I program, which sends additional money to K-12 schools with high shares of low-income students. HBCUs that would receive the extra funds could spend them on student support services such as advising and mental health services, Strayhorn said.

"If the Biden-Harris administration can deliver on half of what they're talking about, it would be revolutionary almost," Strayhorn said.

Biden is likely better able to follow through on some of his promises after Democrats narrowly secured control of the Senate by winning two runoff elections in Georgia in January 2020. Yet the party's slim margins in both chambers of Congress will make it difficult for him to implement some of his more progressive proposals, such as free college, experts say. 

Incoming lawmakers' educational backgrounds will also likely bring more attention to HBCUs, Strayhorn said. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris — who graduated from Howard University, in Washington, D.C. — is the first HBCU alum in the role. And one of the Georgia Senate victors, Raphael Warnock, is a Morehouse College graduate. 

"Congress just gained another advocate of HBCUs," Strayhorn said.