Coronavirus could leave a lasting mark on USC, and by extension Columbia. Here’s how

As goes the University of South Carolina, so goes Columbia.

Long after the coronavirus pandemic fades from the daily lives of S.C. Midlands residents, COVID-19-induced changes at the Palmetto State’s largest school could have lingering effects, according to surveys, experts, USC officials and more.

Likely changes at USC include fewer out-of-state and international students, more online classes and a disrupted student housing market. They, in turn, could have strong effects on what it’s like to live in Columbia.

USC President Robert Caslen is aware that the school will be forced to adapt to coronavirus and is working on a plan to protect students, then lead the university to financially rebound once coronavirus dies down, he told The State in an exclusive interview.

“The financial implications on the university through the summer are $20 to $40 million,” Caslen said. “As you look in the fall, if we lose enrollment, you’re going to lose tuition, and if you lose tuition that’s your bread and butter for revenue generation, so that would be significant.”

Though relatively few people at USC — 53 students, faculty and staff total — have been infected with coronavirus, the indirect effects of coronavirus are likely to affect everyone in the roughly 50,000-person university system. Nationwide, colleges and universities could see a 15% drop in enrollment, according to a trade group cited by the New York Times.

Enrollment loss is a real concern, said Rusty Monhollon, the president and executive director of the S.C. Commission on Higher Education, which oversees higher education in South Carolina.

For one, many students’ financial situations are less secure now than before coronavirus, which could lead potential out-of-state students to avoid paying the higher tuition charged to non-South Carolina residents, Monhollon said. What’s more, if coronavirus doesn’t die down by fall semester and classes are online, students will be less likely to pay for room and board, he said.

“This is a big deal,” Monhollon said.

USC is not the only college facing threats from coronavirus. Throughout the world, COVID-19 will reduce demand and increase costs for universities, according to Moody’s Investor Service.

Asked whether USC is planning to begin in-person classes in mid-August for the fall semester, Caslen demurred.

“The number one priority is the safety and well-being of the students, faculty and staff,” Caslen said. “And that’s presiding and that’s preeminent. Everybody would want the students back now. But the safety and the health of the student body — and withholding the virus so it doesn’t migrate out of the campus area — are some of our key principals. So that’s what’s most important in this.”

Caslen has set a deadline of June 15 to decide whether to re-open campus for fall semester.

Rethinking college

One quarter of high school students surveyed said they are “definitely” or “more likely” to rethink where they will attend college because of coronavirus, according to a survey of more than 1,000 students from Cirkled In, a company that helps students market themselves to jobs and internships.

“We will see a drop in out-of-state applicants in coming years,” the Cirkled In report said. It will take “years” for the impact of coronavirus to “fade away from the system,” the report said.

Research firm Maguire Associates surveyed 6,654 high school students and found 20% of parents and 15% of students said they were more likely to stay close to home for college because of coronavirus.

“I suspect a lot of families will not want to send their students out of state,” said Monhollon, the head of the state higher education commission.

It’s possible USC could lose students, Caslen said, but it is too early to say whether it will. The school is conducting surveys of current students, those whom have applied to USC and those whom have been accepted to see if coronavirus will alter their college plans, Caslen said.

If out-of-state families — North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia and New Jersey send the most students to USC — start to look inwards for college, it could have significant impacts on USC’s budget.

That’s because out-of-state students are USC’s largest source of revenue, making up 30 percent of the revenue in the 2019-2020 budget, said USC spokesman Jeff Stensland.

Out-of-state students, who make up 44% of all undergraduates, pay a base tuition of $33,928, compared to $12,688 for in-state students, according to USC’s website.

As coronavirus has left record-setting numbers of unemployment and battered the stock market, these financial considerations have been even more pronounced, according to a survey from Carnegie Dartlett that included interviews with 4,848 high school seniors, according to the report.

The percentage of high school seniors who said they were confident they could pay for college decreased from 32 before coronavirus became a major issue, to 23, the survey said. The percentage of high school students who say they have no confidence they will be able to afford college increased from 11 to 17, according to the Carnegie Dartlett survey.

It’s not just out-of-state students who are rethinking college amid coronavirus. The Maguire Associates survey determined that 12% of high school students and 15% of parents nationwide are considering postponing enrollment until 2021 because of coronavirus.

International students, who make up a growing part of USC’s student body, are three times more likely than domestic students to consider postponing enrollment because of coronavirus, according to the Maguire Associates survey.

One way USC is trying to position itself to recover quickly after coronavirus dies down is to recruit in-state students, something Caslen has already said he plans to do.

“As a flagship university we serve the people. So where are those people in South Carolina going to be after this crisis and what kind of higher education requirements do they want? And then, can we make ourselves available to be able to deliver that to them?” Caslen said. “So that’s just an idea of post-COVID-19 and how we’ve got to position ourselves so that we’re not so immersed on the crisis that it takes six months afterwards to try to recover.”

Student housing

Should the number of out-of-state students decrease, it could have a ripple effect on the various student housing projects popping up around town.

“It certainly has to have an effect,” said Matt Kennell, the CEO and president of City Center Partnership, which manages Columbia’s Main Street district.

A main driver of the renaissance of Columbia’s Main Street in recent years has been the growing number of USC students, especially in The Hub student housing complex at 1426 Main St. and its nearly 850 beds.

“It sort of feels like summer on Main Street,” Kennell said. “It’s very quiet downtown.”

Some private student housing companies have been adapting. For example, The Hub has been offering virtual tours, Kennell said.

Those that are already up and running are unlikely to take a major hit, said Fred Delk, the executive director of the Columbia Development Corporation. That’s because many students have already signed one-year leases for places like Empire on Assembly Street or The Hub, Delk said.

“People are signing leases months and months and months ahead,” Delk said. It’s “very competitive” among students to lock down off-campus housing.

In the long run, if USC is to see fewer students, some of these housing complexes geared toward students could switch to marketing toward non students, said Columbia developer Richard Burts.

That’s not too hard for apartments that accommodate two or three people, but more difficult when the apartments are designed for five or six roommates, Burts said. That’s because once people graduate college they tend to prefer having fewer roommates, Burts said.

For housing complexes in the planning stage — some of which have already faced opposition from Columbia institutions — the future is unclear. Delk hasn’t heard anything about companies postponing or canceling planned student housing.

Those projects include PMC Properties, which is planning student housing in Olympia; Trinitas Ventures, which is planning a student housing tower on the corner of Pickens and Gervais; and Reign Living, which is building student apartments on Shop Road near Williams-Brice Stadium.

The companies could not be reached for comment.

Whether private companies curtail investment in Columbia’s student housing market remains to be seen, but USC is already delaying construction of its $240 million Campus Village dormitory complex.

“One of the cost-saving measures you can put into place are (delaying) capital programs and capital construction. So campus village is one of them,” Caslen said. “Capital project delays and postponements (are) one of the best cost-saving measures we can put into place right now.”

Five Points

A changing USC has the potential to upend one of Columbia’s hottest flash points between students and residents: Five Points.

Like anywhere else with bars, restaurants and retail, right now Columbia’s historic Five Points district is a ghost town.

“It’s really akin to a horror movie or an end of the world movie,” said Columbia attorney Joe McCulloch who has represented several Five Points bars. A group of Five Points neighbors, led by state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, have waged legal fights with several of the bars, accusing them of only catering to late-night college students.

McCulloch took shots at the “complainers” who “got what they want, which is tumbleweeds blowing through the streets,” McCulloch said.

Harpootlian, a Democrat who lives near Five Points, told The State he sees the coronavirus as an opportunity to restructure Five Points to be a more family friendly environment without so many businesses that drive USC students out to the bars until late in the night.

While coronavirus will affect Five Points establishments indiscriminately, the city, state and federal money used to revitalize the area should not be used on bars that have “an illegal business plan” in selling alcohol to minors, Harpootlian said.

April Lucas, a vocal opponent of many Five Points bars, told The State she thinks the long-term impact on Five Points will be minimal because students still value social interaction.

“I don’t think the virus is going to impact USC any more than any other university,” Lucas said.

Online classes

Naturally, a higher percentage of online students means fewer students in Five Points bars, but also fewer people eating at local restaurants, grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations and more.

The concern that students may have to do at least a portion of their fall semester in quarantine could cause some students to enroll in online-only classes for fall 2020, Monhollon said.

“I think a lot of students are going to make that decision,” Monhollon said.

Going online only can save students money on housing, room and board.

“Would they pay a premium if they’re not going to have that on-campus experience?” Monhollon said.

Even the so-called “college experience” has been adapting to the online-only environment, said Dennis Pruitt, USC’S vice president for student affairs.

Just recently, students held a virtual Hip Hop Wednesday that drew an online crowd of 800, Pruitt said. The school has even had an online comedian “to give people some sense of relief from the drudgeries of the day,” Pruitt said.

The Darla Moore School of Business is holding its 11th annual “entrepreneurial contest,” called The Proving Ground, on Facebook Live, according to a release from the school.

Many of the services students rely upon, such as mental health services, are reaching students who never thought to use them before, said the executive director of Student Health Services, Deborah Beck.

“We now have students reaching out and saying ‘wow, I wish I would have tried these online things before’ because they didn’t really trust them,” Beck said.

Maddox McKibben-Greene, a senior studying journalism and global studies, told The State she wouldn’t be surprised to see more students using online classes because it allows them to work at their own pace.

But as a journalism major, the quarantine has prevented McKibben-Greene from getting photos and videos for stories, which could hurt her portfolio when applying for jobs.

Asked how she thinks coronavirus could change USC, McKibben-Greene said it could reduce the amount of activities for college students and recent graduates.

Despite all the talk about Gen Z being “digital natives,” most high school students do not prefer online education, according to the Cirkled In survey. Sixty-two percent percent of high school students said they prefer a “traditional” education, while only 5% said they prefer online education. The rest preferred a “hybrid” model of online and in-person education, according to the Cirkled In study.

McCulloch, who said he has taught at USC’s law school for 30 years, said he sees online classes as only a stopgap for USC.

“I can’t fathom how a student who has paid full tuition can be happy about...having to watch the same screen I am,” McCulloch said.

“I certainly prefer a podium and a classroom full of students,” McCulloch said.

Fitzhugh Bethea, a freshman studying geography, said he would consider taking a semester or a year off if he were forced to take classes online only.

“I do not learn well that way,” said Bethea, a native of Dillon, S.C.

“Everyone I know hates online classes,” Bethea said.

Asked how USC will change because of coronavirus, Bethea said he wasn’t sure. It is possible everyone will flock back to places like the Horseshoe and Williams-Brice Stadium for football games, but also possible students would continue to avoid large crowds. Either way, he’s confident change is coming.

“It’s going to change everything,” Bethea said of coronavirus.

This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 9:46 AM with the headline "Coronavirus could leave a lasting mark on USC, and by extension Columbia. Here’s how."