COVID-19 Affects the Future of the CCHS senior class

By: Gavin McClean

March 12, 2021

As spring approaches, many students are beginning to make decisions about their futures, whether it is going to college or choosing another path. Due to COVID-19, this process has only become harder than it already was and puts an extreme amount of stress on students.

COVID-19 has forced many colleges to go virtual, limiting the people allowed on campus visits, and even eliminating certain programs they have to offer. These complications have put a large number of students in a difficult situation with their college decisions.

Campus tours typically help give students a picture of what their life would be like at a school; not having that full picture can really make future students uncertain of their options.

“It is potentially a place where I will be spending four years of my life and I would like to get a full idea of what the campus life and education are like,” said Dylan Galea, a senior at Colonie High School.

Many schools have cut very large programs. The College of Saint Rose recently shut down their whole music program.

“One of the local schools that I was interested in canceled their music program which made me have to choose a college much farther away than I had planned,” said Dylan Galea.

Some students have opted to not even attend school. Colleges in the past year have lost up to 20% of their current students and future students. With many schools requiring that students attend classes online due the pandemic, the main question driving this change is “why pay money to take classes from my dorm room?”

“I prefer to have my experience be in person rather than staring at a computer screen. If you don’t have the opportunity to actually engage in your school then don’t consider it,” said current HVCC student, Logan Rudat, who decided to attend college early.

Many of the students who declined the option of attending bigger colleges and farther schools have decided to attend Community College instead.

“I had been set to study abroad in Germany for my entire senior year, and unfortunately COVID cancelled the exchange,” said Logan Rudat.

With all of the setbacks and struggles that students and colleges have had to deal with during the pandemic, students will have to choose carefully on where they want to spend their future. It is safe to say that the landscape of post high school education will be very different from years past.