Pandemic-Fueled Confidence for College Presidents

You don’t have to look far to find troubling signs for colleges and universities. In the last week, Mills College became the latest small private college to say it will close, COVID-19 continued to threaten completion of the spring semester in person at institutions such as Duke and Syracuse Universities, and several other four-year and two-year colleges announced significant layoffs or discontinued programs.

All of which makes the results of Inside Higher Ed’s 2021 Survey of College and University Presidents, published today, more than a little surprising, in that they find the country’s campus leaders more upbeat as they emerge from a year dominated by COVID-19 than they were before the pandemic hit. read more