As fall 2022 picks up in earnest for most colleges, mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t dominate conversations the way it did in January or last year at this time. But the coronavirus is still here, and another pathogen has arrived on campuses, monkeypox.
Meanwhile, the politics and policy landscape looks very different than it used to, as President Joe Biden last month announced a long-awaited student debt forgiveness plan that’s now reshaping conversations about the value of higher ed. Higher education’s financial picture is changing, too — pandemic relief dollars have all been awarded, while concerns about staffing turnover and high inflation linger.
