My experience of college learning during a pandemic
There is a shadow casted on the nation by the tragedy that has become higher learning during a pandemic.
Since March 2020, most schools have moved from in person to online. I transferred into Columbia College Chicago in 2019 right before the pandemic. My school, Columbia College Chicago, has done a horrible job trying to adjust to the time. College education during the pandemic is not worth the thousands of dollars we borrow from the government to be able to pay these institutions. According to Valuepenguin.com, Americans are on average $30,000 or more in debt.
I am not the only one who feels this way either. I spoke with DePaul college student Cassandra Jones, a reporter at The Real Chi, about her feelings toward paying full price for half the education.
“We should not pay full price tuition for school during a pandemic because we are not going through the same experience,” Jones said. “A lot of the college experience has been lost during this pandemic. Your education is dependent on your access to resources.”
Cassandra noticed, “If you do not have a stable internet connection, then you are not going to be able to effectively participate in your zoom classes. If you don't own a computer at home, then it will be harder to complete your assignments. Students without a computer had the benefit of going to the library to complete their work. But when your college campus is shut down, then that student loses access to those computers (which in turn makes their college experience much harder).”
I couldn't agree more.
Columbia College tried to lend out equipment but also sent out emails explaining that “resources are limited.” The success of these classes are really dependent on how good and resourceful our teachers are, and a lot of them are not. Some of my teachers do live zoom classes, while other less tech savvy teachers just film a lecture for students to watch. I prefer live Zoom classes second to in-person instruction. Students exercise patience with these teachers because this is all new to them, too. It's just that we are suffering and being impacted by it mentally and financially.
As a student at Columbia College Chicago myself, the cost of tuition is too high! Tuition in 2020 for the fall semester was $26,610, I personally pay because I enjoy a lot of the amenities Columbia has to offer. With Columbia being shut down we are not getting any of these amenities which means they should lower tuition. If it wasn't for COVID-19, Columbia actually had plans to raise tuition. After a protest from parents and students in July of 2020, the office of the president sent out emails to the student body explaining why the raise never happened, “the Columbia College Chicago Board of Trustees has approved lowering tuition for the 2020-21 academic year back to its 2019-20 level. The trustees took this action in recognition of the fact that students and their families are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying economic downturn.”
Some people do believe they are getting the same education but just in a more less enthusiastic, more self driven type of way. I spoke to Saint Xavier University student, and editor at The Real Chi, Valeria Garcia, about her view on education amidst the pandemic, “ In a way I do feel like I'm getting the same education as I did pre pandemic. This is only because my professors are trying to get their material out to us the best and easiest way they can. It's just a quick reminder that we are all in this together and trying to figure it out as we go. The transition has been rough because I'm not having human interaction with my classmates and professors. I personally feel more motivated in the right environment, I'm not able to go to campus and just do my homework, it can be frustrating and sometimes easy to forget that we're still students.”
This I agree with.
If you have a professor that is swift and efficient - depending on your major - you can still get a good education. You just miss out on a lot of the college experience and human interaction. Most people go away to college for the experience, but the pandemic has turned that experience into something completely different now. According to insidehighered.com, fall enrollment has declined 2.5%, and that number has doubled since 2019.
Jones spoke about her college experience during the pandemic, “ The pandemic has made it more difficult to be involved in college. Personally, I believe one of the main benefits of having a college experience is to interact with other students. Since classes are held over zoom, there is no spare moment to speak with your other classmates. When we were able to physically attend college, you had many opportunities to speak to new people. It's disappointing to know that you could spend a few months with someone and never really know them.”
She brought up many important points that I have been struggling to adjust with. I used to be in Black Student Union and attend SGA (Student Government Association) meetings, but I have not even heard from the leaders of these organizations this year, because we are all off campus. The beauty of college is making connections and with that suddenly being stripped from college students, it makes morale extremely low. My social skills have suffered from this time of online learning. So with all of this being said I go back to the first thought I had. Why are we paying full priced tuition during a pandemic where we are not receiving the full college experience? People have been saying for a long time that college is a capitalist scam, and I never believed them until now. Colleges are money hungry, they don’t care about the quality of education that the students receive. Columbia College Chicago specifically has made no attempts to make this transition uniform or easy for the whole student body, and I’m sure other students at other schools feel the same way, too. We need to do something on the federal level about the tragedy that has become college education during the pandemic.