You’ll recollect I wrote about what happens when students stop coming to a campus which was not predominantly a commuter campus. I particularized it to the university at which I spent most of my faculty career.
It occurs to me this same phenomenon can occur at every campus which has a large contingent of non-commuter students who come to the campus to live while going to school. If the students aren’t there to rent the apartments clustered around the campus, the landlords will find other renters and these are likely to be poor and on public assistance of various sorts.
A sort of reverse gentrification occurs, the neighborhood deteriorates, and may not recover. It seems likely hundreds of campuses face this dilemma as a reluctance to offer face-to-face classes in an era of contagion tempts schools to segue to on-line instruction.
I’ll bet enrollments and student loan applications will be significantly lower this fall. The ripple effects will ricochet through campus communities, hitting bars, pizza joints, fast food, and more. The higher ed bubble-bursting predicted by Glenn Reynolds may be upon us.
