There is plenty for higher education leaders and professors to fear in the fall. Will students come back? Will in-person classes lead to a spike in Covid-19 cases? Will faculty be ready to teach whatever kind of hybrid, hyflex, at a podium behind plexiglass—or yet-to-be-determined mode we are forced into by the circumstances of the moment?
But if students and faculty return to classes that are entirely online, there is a looming crisis that few are giving serious consideration: retention.
Retention means students are actually passing the classes they enroll in.