The 4,000 U.S. colleges and universities cut 13 percent of their collective workforce in the past 12 months, axing about 650,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
Custodians, kitchen workers, and other low-wage employees took the brunt of the cuts as dorms and dining halls closed when students were ordered home last March. Many students continue learning from home now.
Student-services jobs also were eliminated, as were adjunct faculty positions. Now even tenured faculty are on the chopping block, according to Inside Higher Ed (IHE), a news service.
Aspiring academics may now have to scrap their career plans, IHE noted, and faculty members turfed out in mid-career may never be able to return to their posts.
Wealthy institutions often have termination support programs for faculty and staff, but most colleges and universities are unable to afford such perks, IHE reported.
The IHE called on colleges and universities to offer career retraining and job placement services at no charge to those who have lost their jobs, calling it ‘a defining moral issue for higher education right now.”
TREND FORECAST: Unmentioned in the mainstream news is our forecast made one year ago when colleges closed down and sent students home, of the financial and personal toll remote learning has taken on once-flourishing college towns that have now become Rust Belts 2.0.
And with many young people – and their parents – out of work and facing a dim future, fewer people will be unwilling to go deep in debt to get a diploma that will be useless in finding them a decent-paying job.
Thus, with fewer signing up for a college education, more downward economic pressure will hit college towns.
