Technological and Institutional Changes Needed for Bringing Students Back to Colleges: Under Secretary of Education

In the backdrop of persistent losses in enrollment numbers across the United States for undergraduate education, the country’s top official on higher education policy recently said that new technologies have to be deployed, and fundamental changes in institutional settings need to be made to encourage students to come back to colleges. “For one, enrollment has fallen, instead of grown. So with enrollment down 700,000 students, we’re asking, how do we make sure this interruption is not a permanent scar on our country’s educational attainment? How do we get those people back on the pathway?” said James Kvaal, Under Secretary, U.S. Department of Education, in a Bloomberg interview. Kvaal said that the situation has “changed permanently,” and that there are many aspects to how it’s going to be handled moving forward. “We’re going to use technology differently and there’s going to be a different mix of online and in-person learning.” He …