College Students Story Archives - Page 2 of 2 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Fall 2020 Saw Lowest College, Vocational-Technical School Enrollment In 20 Years For W.Va.

Less than half of West Virginia’s 2020 public high school seniors enrolled in higher education this past fall. That includes traditional four-year institutions, two-year institutions, and vocational and technical schools.

According to the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, only 48.2 percent of high school seniors who graduated in 2020 pursued some higher education in the fall.

That marks the lowest college-going rate for recent high school graduates in the state since 2000. The commission’s chancellor, Sarah Armstrong Tucker, said the coronavirus pandemic played a role in that decline, but said it’s not clear if it’s the main culprit.

“We anticipated, as did the rest of the country, that we would have fewer students going to college this year, because of concerns about exposure to COVID,” Tucker said.

It is a low point for West Virginia, but it’s also not a sharp decline.

The college-going rate in West Virginia has hovered around or just above 50 percent for several years, Tucker noted. She said the biggest problem has been ensuring students understand that going to college, whether the traditional way or a community and technical college, is doable and important for student futures.

“So, that’s what we’ve been working on,” she said. “Trying to find ways to make sure that our students know that going to college is a possibility. And not just a possibility, but an affordable possibility.”

Tucker said certain groups, in particular, do not enroll as often as others. For example, higher income students in West Virginia enroll in college 25 percent more than lower income students — and more women enroll in higher education than men, by about 20 percent.

“There’s a population of 60 percent of males out there that don’t know what we do and don’t understand how well we do it,” she said. “And so we really need to start targeting them and getting them into school.”

Tucker said all students can get affordable college degrees in West Virginia. The state offers several financial aid opportunities such as the PROMISE Scholarship and the West Virginia Invests Grant.

Ahead of the 2021 state legislative session, higher education officials reported that submissions of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in the state were down by 25 percent.

As of April 23, the West Virginia HEPC reported that 49.4 percent of 2021 high school seniors have completed the FAFSA.

The deadline to submit FAFSA applications was extended in the state to July 1.

White House Task Force Doctor Stops In Lexington To Discuss College Coronavirus Cases

White House-appointed Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx visited the Lexington campus of the University of Kentucky on Monday as concerns grow over an escalating number of positive cases on campuses around the region.

Birx met with students, faculty and administrators on the UK campus, which has more than 400 active COVID-19 cases, 86 of those confirmed since late last week.

She says hearing from multiple colleges to learn about their coronavirus plans will help determine what measures keep students safe.

“We’re right now consolidating all of that information so that we can get that out to universities across the United States,” Birx said. “So they understand what it takes to open and stay open successfully, and what it takes to protect both the students and the communities where these universities are.”

Despite the increase in cases, Birx says universities should be able to continue holding in-person classes.

“The majority of infections that you’re seeing on college campuses are not happening on campus in the classroom,” she said. “Because we’ve now seen throughout the summer that these infections are brought into institutions, due to what happens off-campus in communities.”

Birx says regardless of the strength of a university’s coronavirus plans students must follow protocols on and off campus.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear reported in a Monday briefing that 36 Kentucky colleges and universities have reported more than 2,000 active cases. An uptick of infections recently resulted in West Virginia University suspending in-person classes.

Reporters also asked about President Donald Trump’s recorded comments, recently released by reporter and author Bob Woodward, in which Trump talked about intentionally downplaying the severity of the virus.

Birx said she has “not downplayed the virus,” and that she has made her concerns plain in communication with the president.

“I have been very clear in my discussions with … the president of the level of severity of this virus, and I am not going to second-guess what the President has done or not done,” she said.

Enrollment Drops at West Virginia 4-Year Public Colleges

Higher education officials say the number of students attending public four-year colleges in West Virginia has dropped 3 percent from a year ago, including a 9 percent dip in the number of first-time freshmen.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the state Higher Education Policy Commission released the figures Friday.

The number of students attending four-year colleges was about 62,700 this fall. About 10,300 of those were first-time freshmen.

Excluding high school students taking “dual enrollment” college classes, the overall enrollment was about 57,300, down 4 percent from last fall. Based on those figures, Fairmont State University, West Liberty University and the West Virginia University Institute of Technology were the only colleges to report enrollment increases.