Higher Ed Reflections: Removing barriers
As I begin my doctoral program, higher education is facing what we, in the education industry, call an “enrollment crisis.” There are many reasons, known as higher ed’s grand challenges, for such enrollment declines. To learn about all of higher ed’s grand challenges, you can check out this EDUCAUSE presentation. To summarize just two reasons:
There is a general perception that a college degree is not worth the cost and will not help get a better paying job.
The population of “traditional students,” defined as students who have completed high school, are under the age of 25, and attend college full-time (from IGI-Global), is on the decline.
Given these two reasons, and further given that colleges and universities have been slow to try to attract a different demographic of students, it’s more important than ever that institutions lower the level of friction to retain students.
Friction point: vaccinations
In today’s post I’m going to share with you a barrier I’m facing, one that began before I even registered for class. In this particular case, the barrier is the result of an executive order, a rule signed by California’s governor.
In the state of California, a series of vaccinations are required for students to attend the California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) schools. A full list can be found here. For some younger folks, it’s likely they may have access to their vaccination records. For those that weren’t born in the United States, or for 45 year olds like myself, finding their childhood vaccination records may prove challenging, or in my case impossible.
Despite being vaccinated against Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) as a child, my vaccinations records simply don’t exist anymore. As a result, I was instructed to go have blood drawn so an antibody test could be performed to determine my immunity status.
A few years ago I had a really traumatic experience having blood drawn at Kaiser. It was so traumatizing that I now have an almost paralyzing fear of having blood drawn. Needless to say, I was not excited about having to get an antibody test. In addition, the antibody tests cost me $60. Fortunately for me, I’m in a good place financially, and $60 is affordable, however, this is not the case for many students that might be attending the CSU system.
In the CSU, 225,000 students receive federal Pell grants as of 2023. These grants are provided to undergraduate students who display exceptional financial need. For such students, $60 might be a very big deal.
The antibody tests revealed that I was immune to Mumps and Rubella, but not to Measles. As a result, I had to get an MMR shot. As I uploaded my umpteenth screenshot from my health provider, I was hopeful that this MMR vaccination would be my last, and that I would finally be finished with the prerequisite health screening.
However, that proved not to be the case. The health portal itself is a high-friction service, requiring logging in all over again and entering your birthday, despite already having authenticated TWICE with multi factor authentication. Each time I logged in, I was met with another message saying I hadn’t met the vaccination requirements. In the last message I received, I was instructed to get a second round of MMR vaccinations.
What if I was on the fence about college
So, I’m clearly very excited about the doctoral program, and I’m a huge believer in the value of higher education. I’m also fortunate enough to be able to afford all of these additional medical costs, and am generally supportive of vaccinations.
However, imagine if I was a “traditional student” right out of high school who was kind of on the fence about going to college. I could go get a job in the fast food industry for $20 an hour, or I could hopefully finish college four or five years later with tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt, and then struggle to find a job.
Further, imagine I now have to go through this elaborate health screening. Let’s look at all the friction points this creates:
An antibody test costs $60, which is enough to fill my tank of gas, or pay an important bill.
Using the portal, scheduling all the doctors appointments, and communicating with health services takes hours of time.
Repeated trips to the doctor’s office for a series of shots that I don’t want.
How to move forward
As leaders in the higher education field, it’s important for us to realize the need to remove friction points for students. Unfortunately, these vaccination requirements are issued at the state level, so colleges and universities can’t eliminate the requirements all together. That being said, there are other things that could be done to ensure we aren’t deterring would-be students. Perhaps the campus could make access to the health portal easier by not requiring multiple logins. And, maybe the campus could offer the antibody testing free of charge, and provide the needed vaccinations, preventing a myriad of trips back and forth the a healthcare provider.
Reflection point
What would you do to ease the burden of student health screenings?
Think back to your time in college, or, if you haven’t been to college think of someone you know who has gone. What barriers did you experience or have you heard of?
