Americans Are Split Down the Middle on University Vaccination Requirements
U.S. public opinion is almost evenly divided on the question of whether universities should require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19, with 48% of survey respondents recently saying they are in favor of such a mandate and 49% expressing opposition. Among the 1,290 adults polled by researchers, “18% of Republican participants said they supported a vaccine requirement, compared to 86% of Democratic participants and 45% of independent participants; 42% of male participants supported the mandates, compared to 53% of female participants.” The likelihood of supporting a mandate increased with age: 63% of those over the age of 65 favor a mandate, as do 46% of those aged 50 through 64 and 43% of those between the ages of 18 and 49. Across racial lines, black respondents were most in favor of such a requirement (58%), followed by white (46%) and Hispanic (43%) respondents.
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
Most Online Education Leaders Are Taking a Fresh Look at Their Priorities
The pandemic-inspired pivot to online learning has caused most chief online officers (58%) at two- and four-year colleges to reassess their priorities by “focusing on edtech enhancements, faculty professional development and online quality.” Among the 60% who said they expect online enrollment growth to continue at a rate that exceeds pre-pandemic levels, 17% anticipate “strongly increased online growth.” Although just 9% of COOs said it is “very likely” that the pivot will lead to new and online permanent undergraduate degree programs, 59% said “it would be likely for some programs but not for others.”
Source: eCampus News
More Than Two-Thirds of Colleges Won’t Require Test Scores for Fall 2022 Enrollment
The number of bachelor-granting colleges and universities that will not require Fall 2020 applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores now exceeds 1,600. That accounts for more than 68% of all such institutions in the United States and includes “nearly all” of the most competitive U.S. liberal arts colleges as well as a majority of public universities. “The major exceptions to the strong test-optional trend… are public college systems in the deep south, such as Georgia and Florida, U.S. service academies and some small religious colleges.”
Source: FairTest
Workers with Bachelor’s Degrees Have Easier Access to Higher-Paying Jobs
A new report released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) states that members of the workforce who hold a bachelor’s degree have “dramatically better access to higher-wage occupations” than those who lack the degree. NBER researchers also found that on average, those without a degree must work until age 55 before they begin to earn as much as those with college degrees were earning at age 25. In addition, “the wage and upward mobility opportunities that come with a four-year degree don’t appear, the authors say, to be tied to what someone learns in college. Instead, those rewards appear to be tied more directly to simply having completed the degree. This is to say that those who hire people for good jobs simply prefer hiring people with college degrees.”
Source: Forbes