Campus Closures Amplify Students' Struggle to Meet Basic Needs
Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from March 27–31. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight the impact of events at Liberty University on the industry conversation and student conversations about topics other than courses. Spoiler alert: they’re angry, sad, and many of them are struggling financially.
Because of the changing nature of social media data and our understanding of the conversation, each briefing covers a distinct point in time. Comparisons from briefing to briefing may be helpful, but we can’t draw correlations like we could if we were using other datasets such as surveys or historical social media data.
We identified about 382,000 mentions of coronavirus and higher education March 27–30, ranging from 70,000–126,000 mentions per day. Remember, our industry-level analysis only captures general higher education mentions. If someone mentions the name or acronym of an institution without using a higher ed term (e.g., campus, university, college, classes, etc.), it’s not included in this analysis. Actual volume of conversation across the industry is likely much higher.
The continued volume decrease in industry conversation is consistent with decreasing online conversation about the coronavirus in general. The daily executive briefing from Turbine Labs, which considers all media articles, blogs, and social media posts about coronavirus, is reporting daily volumes of 11–13 million for our analysis period, compared to 15+million earlier in March.
Once again, conversation volume dipped over the weekend, increasing again on Monday. While total conversation is slowly decreasing (March 27–30 conversation was about 17 percent lower than a week earlier, March 20–23), the percentage of conversations focused on higher education increased to 39 percent. This is the highest percentage of higher ed-focused conversation we’ve seen since starting our Briefings, likely because the coronavirus cases at Liberty University entered the news cycle and social media discussion on Sunday. On Sunday, March 29, 28 percent of all higher ed-focused conversations mentioned Liberty University or Jerry Falwell Jr.
Two thirds of the industry conversation about coronavirus occurs on social media, with another 12 percent each on forums and news sites, and approximately 10 percent on blogs/Tumblr. When the conversation is focused on higher education, it’s more likely to be on social media (78 percent of mentions). Similar to prior Briefings, the source of conversation changed dramatically when students talked about their experience in the first-person. From March 27–30, 41 percent of student conversations we identified were on forums (mostly Reddit), followed by 36 percent on social media (mostly Twitter) and the remaining on blogs/Tumblr.
The news coverage of the coronavirus cases at Liberty University and related social media conversation dominated the higher ed-focused topics, as demonstrated in the following word cloud of the top 100 people, phrases, and emojis. Liberty or Falwell accounted for 13 percent of all higher ed-focused mentions March 27–30.
To understand other prevalent topics, we created a second topic cloud, excluding all mentions of Liberty University.
The remaining topics reveal themes similar to the March 27 Briefing: online courses, the relief package passed by congress, and other political terms.
The phrase “tuition and housing” was mentioned frequently alongside “relief package” largely because of a viral tweet published the evening of Saturday, March 28 by a student at the University of Iowa. Despite having just over a thousand followers, her tweet was retweeted 25,000 times and received over 125,000 likes.
As a college student I have been
— Isabella O’Connor (@isaroconnor) March 29, 2020
~ laid off my part time job
~ denied unemployment
~ left out of the COVID-19 relief package
~ left out of my parents relief package
~ rejected from multiple jobs bc online class schedule
~ gotten 0 refund from my tuition and housing
28 percent of higher ed-focused conversation displays negative sentiment, which is closer to what we would expect in a crisis situation after last week’s elevated negative sentiment. Sentiment from students, however, remains much more negative at 44 percent.
When the conversation is this large it’s hard to find the individual voices. While over 123,000 individual accounts are contributing to higher ed-focused conversation, only 3 percent of the mentions are first-person accounts from individuals who reveal an affiliation with a campus (n=4,240). These hidden voices represent lived experiences that provide valuable insight as you craft your communication and service delivery.
In our last Briefing, we highlighted student conversation related to online courses. Today we’ll focus on what students are saying about topics other than coursework.
Every emotional analysis we’ve conducted of student conversation related to the pandemic’s impact on higher education has yielded similar results: students are angry and sad. This remarkable consistency suggests a continued need to care for students. While reviewing student conversations from March 27–30, mentions displaying sadness varied from missing friends, disappointment that family members weren’t supporting students’ needs, grieving cancelled or postponed graduations, loneliness, and a desire to continue mental health counseling they received on campus.
The viral tweet from our topic analysis was excluded from our student segmentation, but it represents one of the themes in student conversation: finances. In addition to commentary about courses moving online, students share their struggles related to losing jobs, supporting their family financially now that they’re at home, losing access to room and board, and paying bills. These themes are evident in the top 100 keywords and phrases from student conversation, with words like work, job, and pay in the top twenty.
Direct pleas for funding demonstrate the severity of this financial theme. One student pleaded with Microsoft to make Windows 10 free right now after paying $140 to upgrade their system in order to access online courses. Others are reaching out to online celebrities (like Jeffree Star mentioned in the March 24 Briefing) directly with their CashApp username and asking for funds. The following are direct quotes [sic] from some of their requests.
Students have tangible needs exacerbated by campus closures. Not only do they cause immediate stress, but financial struggles today may impact a student’s ability to enroll in courses this fall, or even finish the current semester. Make sure you communicate the services available to students from campus, local communities, and national communities related to basic needs. The Syracuse University Office of Financial Literacy is a great example: they’ve published a list of COVID-19 emergency resources including a national food pantry finder and the process to access mini-grants from their student opportunity fund. More than just a list of resources, they’re offering virtual appointments with a Smart Money Coach by email request.
We’re still not seeing a lot of coronavirus-related mentions from admitted students, but I suspect that’s because they’re naming campuses specifically, or generally mentioning missed tours or questions about test scores (general mentions aren’t captured by our current query). However, your institution should actively seek mentions from admitted and prospective students and engage appropriately; every touchpoint counts when many traditional yield activities have been cancelled or modified.
One mention got pulled into our data set that’s worth highlighting. Hailey was supposed to visit Purdue last Friday. Since visits were cancelled, her family created a substitute at-home experience and Hailey tweeted about it.
my college visit to purdue was suppose to be today but it got canceled due to corona and i came home and my family had made me a purdue tour in our house🥺 pic.twitter.com/iBBzO1MOsD
— hailey🦋 (@HaileyOwens19) March 27, 2020
Not only is her family wonderfully supportive of her college search, both the Purdue flagship account and the School of Nursing responded to her tweet (which didn’t tag the institution but could be identified via social listening). Even better, current Purdue students and alumni responded to encourage her. Hailey has less than 100 followers, but this tweet received almost 1,000 engagements so far. Perhaps it’s making an impression that a traditional campus visit couldn’t.
Conversation continues to decrease slightly, but the portion of higher ed-focused mentions was higher than we’ve seen in previous Briefings. Social media remains the largest conversation source, although students are more likely to share personal experiences on Reddit and Tumblr than the general population. Online classes remained a common topic of conversation, along with Liberty University and how students are financially affected by campus closures. Students remain angry and sad, as they have since campuses started to announce operational changes. Their conversation demonstrates a need for co-curricular student services related to mental health and basic needs.
Based on our analysis, we offer the following recommendations.
The Coronavirus Higher Education Industry Briefing is new territory for Campus Sonar. We’ll be back on Friday with our next briefing. Here in Wisconsin, we finally saw the sun come out this week. I’m looking forward to getting out of my house, breathing some fresh air, and replenishing my vitamin D. I hope you have a chance to do the same.