How colleges are handling the COVID-19 pandemic and testing challenges

Chris Marsicano, Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Davidson College, joined Yahoo Finance Live to break down how institutions of higher education have responded to handling COVID-19 and the testing challenges on-campus.

Video Transcript

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SEANA SMITH: We have states pushing forward with their vaccination effort. They're also looking to reopen schools. We want to talk about what colleges are doing as they lay out their plans for the fall semester. And for that, we want to bring in Chris Marsicano. He's Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Davidson College. And we're also joined by our education reporter Aarthi Swaminathan.

So Chris, let me start with you just in terms of I know that you've been tracking school reopenings and how schools have more broadly responded to the pandemic over the past year. So looking ahead then, what are you expecting colleges to do about in-person classes this fall?

CHRIS MARSICANO: Well, Seana, thank you for having me on. We expect most colleges will be planning an in-person semester for fall 2021. The financial pressures that-- that caused lots of institutions to be in person over this past year are still there. And with new vaccines, we think it will be safer for colleges to be in person. So I expect the majority of institutions to be back to mostly in person in the fall.

AARTHI SWAMINATHAN: Chris, there has been a spike in cases, right. We've seen Dartmouth. We've seen Duke. What is driving the spike in these cases? And how is spring break going to affect the rest of the schools?

CHRIS MARSICANO: Well, Aarthi, whenever students are on the move, whenever there's great mobility, we see increases in cases. So we have a working paper with authors from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Indiana University, and the University of Washington that shows that students moving to campuses in the fall increase nationwide COVID cases by 6,000 per day. We also have great research from the New York Fed and from Ball State University that shows that spring break in and of itself spread cases across the country. Institutions have got to find a way to keep their students not so much mobile to keep those cases down by doing things like getting rid of spring break altogether or coming up with alternative break plans.

AARTHI SWAMINATHAN: It's interesting. It's one year on, and we're still talking about spring break and the effect, you know, in spreading COVID. But we also have the American Rescue Plan, huge, huge package. But at the same time, you estimated that in order to reopen really safely, you need to spend at least $30 million on testing every student every week. Interesting. What I'm trying to say is it's super expensive to reopen safely. Do you think the government's package will be enough? Or is this going to create an inequality between schools?

CHRIS MARSICANO: Sure. So I should clarify that $30 million number is for a university of 20,000 students to test all of their students every week. Most institutions are not testing their students at that level, which is really a problem, because unless you have high-quality PCR testing of every student every week, it's hard to nail down where the cases are spiking and where the spread is happening. The Rescue Plan is a great first step. But I think most of my colleagues who are leaders of colleges and universities would like more funding, more support for testing, and certainly more support for making sure that vaccines get to the 18 to 24-year-old population where, in most states, they're not yet there yet.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Chris, once we are out of the pandemic, isn't there going to be another need for funding, because a lot of universities, I mean, you're looking at $45,000 to $60,000 a year, room, board? And that's not even Ivy League, I think. But you know, to heck with the Ivies. There's going to need to be a lot more funding than just what's already come out, right?

CHRIS MARSICANO: Well, the quickest way to help institutions financially, and especially the public institutions, is to make sure that the state budgets are strong enough to keep appropriations higher. We know, without a doubt, that the increase in tuition is often tied to a decrease in state appropriations. So federal funding to states to make sure that-- that states' budgets are sound is a great way to keep tuition down. I should also point out, though, that most institutions don't make the bulk of their money off of tuition.

Tuition is heavily discounted at most institutions. That sticker price is not the price that students necessarily pay. What they do pay is-- is tuition-- and-- what they do pay is room and board-- excuse me-- auxiliary expenses. And those expenses are the ones that can only be helped if the institutions are in person. So the best thing financially for institutions is to get these vaccines in arms of 18 to 24-year-olds so they can come back to campus and then pay that-- that room and board fee.

SEANA SMITH: And speaking of fees and the revenue impact from all this, I mean, it's still-- we're still estimating the exact fallout that colleges are seeing from the pandemic. But Chris, you're in this. You're talking to the different colleges. You're tracking exactly what they're doing here as they plan for the fall. If they don't bring students back on campus, how significantly could that potentially impact their enrollment?

CHRIS MARSICANO: So there's a great-- a great inequality in higher education institutions, places like Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, Lehigh University-- Seana being an alum-- are--

SEANA SMITH: My alma mater.

CHRIS MARSICANO: --all institutions that have done pretty-- yeah-- have all done-- have all been institutions that have done pretty well and can weather this storm. Those institutions that don't have as much high-quality funding in their endowments, they're the ones that-- that could struggle here. And if students can't get back in person, then those-- those institutions that don't have as many resources, those institutions that don't have states propping them up will struggle and some may close. But I should point out these inequalities happened before the pandemic, and they'll be there after the pandemic. The pandemic just made them much worse.

AARTHI SWAMINATHAN: Chris, do you have a sense of how many schools have permanently gone remote? Has that phenomenon happened yet? Have you tracked that?

CHRIS MARSICANO: Well, the toothpaste is out of the tube, so it's hard to put it back in. And there are going to be many institutions that continue to offer online instruction opportunities for students in the future. However, because of the accreditation process we have in the United States, institutions will have to, by next spring, certainly if not by-- by next fall, have to go back to their main mode of operations or change their accreditation status.

So expect most students to go-- most institutions to go back to their-- their fall 2019 pre-pandemic modes of instruction, but still keep some opportunities on the table for students to take classes online. Students seem to enjoy that flexibility, but most of them want to be out of their parents' basement and in the classroom in person.

SEANA SMITH: Chris Marsicano, always great to speak with you, thanks so much for hopping on here on Yahoo Finance, Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Davidson College. And of course, our thanks to Aarthi Swaminathan as well.