Student protests against the Israeli military assault on Gaza following the unprecedented October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel have spread to several countries.
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The pandemic hit almost every industry hard, but few were hit as hard as higher education.
Times were already tough for many American universities, mostly because of declining enrollment numbers and weakening financial support from state governments. The pandemic accelerated these trends and forced colleges especially smaller private colleges and a ton of midlevel state schools to gut their budgets and lay off workers to offset revenue losses.
As we emerge from this pandemic, it’s worth asking what will become of higher education in America. And if the situation is as dire as it appears, should students and parents seriously rethink the value of college?