Presidents Fear Financial, and Human, Toll of Coronavirus – Inside Higher Ed
College and university presidents are deeply worried that the coronavirus crisis could wreak havoc on their institutions’ finances in the near term and, especially, beyond.
But right now, they say they’re most concerned about the toll the crisis could take on the mental health of their students and employees.
Those are among the key findings of a survey of 172 campus leaders Inside Higher Ed conducted with Hanover Research last week, as the sweeping scope of the COVID-19 situation came into clearer focus in the United States.
The 172 presidents who responded to the survey answered a set of questions about their near-term and longer-term priorities, the actions they had taken thus far in response, and where they felt best equipped (and not) to handle the impact of the crisis. (Four-year public college leaders were underrepresented among the survey’s respondents, at 17.4 percent, while they made up 23.6 percent of the invited sample.)