Marist Must Drop Asynchronous Classes, Ensure Technology for International and Economically-Disadvantaged Students
The subject of endless internet memes, 2020 seems to garner more mockery each month after a new crisis emerges—killer bees, wildfires and COVID-19 to name a few—leaving us thinking it can hardly get worse. Another crisis we didn’t see coming? Education inequity.
Equity, as opposed to equality, emphasizes eliminating obstacles stemming from hierarchies of social oppression to ensure all people, regardless of background, have access to the same resources. Once all groups have the same chances, equality emerges, meaning that they are at the same level and are left choosing how to utilize their opportunities. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed problems for equal virtual learning for students and higher education, in particular, allowing inequity to pervade the collegiate population.
For groups typically disadvantaged in U.S. education, like minority groups, those of a lower socioeconomic class and international students, the pandemic only widened this disparity. Institutions like Marist College that boast a notable population of international and Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) students relative to the student body are especially affected by the transition to online education due to international travel and financial challenges invoked by the pandemic.
In reference to international students, the International Association of Universities published their 2020 Global Survey Report and found that “COVID-19 has had an impact on international student mobility at 89% of [Higher Education Institutions],” asserting that COVID-19 has significantly affected international students’ ability to travel, thus hindering their schooling by preventing them from returning to campus. As of August 2019, Marist represents 49 states and 64 countries with its international students composing approximately 3.3% of its total student population.
With students given the option to experience the semester at home, while some students remain on-campus, challenges like Wi-Fi access, time zones and classroom time pose a sizable problem for the equal access to education, which is promised to all students under the NYS Every Student Succeeds Act plan from 2018.
Some of the problems caused by online learning result from the unpredictable and imperfect nature of technology. Because reliable technology costs money, this barrier incites a conversation of class as well. Despite its flagrant lack of economic diversity, there is still 2.8% of Marist’s population that is in the bottom 20%, with an annual household income of $20,000 or less. While they don’t represent the majority, this population must be accounted for in any plans of the college, including online education. This population, which can increase the number of students facing educational or economical challenges at Marist when international and HEOP students are also considered, is more likely to lack internet access since Wi-Fi is a dispensable cost, not a necessity.
However, for the distance learning that conditions of COVID-19 mandate, that does not remain true, thus marking where the discrepancy begins. According to the 2018 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, 1.3 million homes in the tri-state area, where a bulk of Marist’s population resides, still have no access to any type of internet subscription, creating a challenge for online classes.
As for HEOP students—of which Marist had just over 450 graduates as of 2019—because they come from an economically—or educationally—disadvantaged background, they are more likely to fall under the 888,661 households without internet in New York. To meet financial eligibility guidelines for the program, their households must meet the poverty guidelines per person in a household multiplied by 185%, which remains in an income bracket where the internet is understandably not a priority.
Despite various sectors of its population experiencing hardships due to distance learning for both aspects within and out of Marist’s control, Marist still touts the accessibility of technology to students and its cruciality to the curriculum.
“A distinguishing feature of the Marist education is the manner in which information technology is used to support teaching, learning, and scholarship,” the Marist website reads. “The College, a leader in educational applications of information technology, offers students access to advanced technologies to help them develop as lifelong learners and productive members of their communities. Technology resources are combined with flexible and innovative program formats to expand access to higher education for all students.”
Then, there is the issue of time zones. As a college that promotes its program for international students, Marist of all schools should acknowledge the threat of its policies for online learning toward the equal access to education for all students that it guarantees. Because Marist is located on the East Coast, it conducts classes in EST, which is fully reasonable and expected—that is until Marist allowed professors to make some classes synchronous and mandatory. Expecting students to have the flexibility to attend class at a certain time every week during a pandemic is unreasonable, especially since it is currently harder than ever for students to make arrangements to attend class or complete work somewhere with Wi-Fi.
I understand that the goal of synchronous classes is to make the most of distance learning and that international students and those in other U.S. time zones can work with professors to make up lost class, but how does that impact their education? Making these synchronous classes possible when not everyone has access to them promotes a sense of inferiority and ignorance of some of the challenges posed during COVID-19.
In addition, those who had the privilege to return to campus receive an advantage fully-remote students do not: classroom time. According to a study done about the effectiveness of in-person and online learning applied to student outcomes by the e-Journal of Business Education & Scholarship of Teaching in 2018, “In the case of the comparison of pre-test and post-test scores on the instructor questions, taking the online course would be expected to decrease the change in score by more than a point,” the study found. “This represents roughly 25% of the average change in score. And for the overall grade, an expected decrease in exam average of 4.164 percentage points represents almost half a letter grade.”
If some students have the opportunity and resources to continue their education, then all of the Marist community, regardless of location, class or circumstance, should. To remedy this, Marist should strive to hold solely asynchronous classes wherever possible, so students are not waking up at 2 a.m. to feel a sense of community and learn calculus.
Some may counter this with the assertion that if students chose to remain enrolled in college this semester, that they should have expected this. I agree to the extent that they should have expected technological challenges, but their school failing to provide such resources or acknowledging the challenging predicament of many is not to be expected.
Consider this QuickPoll of 267 institutions that details what other colleges have done to ameliorate these challenges. “Campuses have responded quickly and creatively, with 81% offering loans of devices and options for free or very low cost. Half are loaning Wi-Fi hotspots to students, and 40 percent are helping students purchase equipment, including mailing the equipment to them,” the article said in reference to the poll. “Many campuses are expanding campus Wi-Fi nodes or moving Wi-Fi hotspots to parking lots for students who need to connect from there because they don’t have necessary connectivity from home.”
Put simply, Marist can do more. The issues of technology, Wi-Fi access and classroom time are not to be confused with the transition to online learning, as supplies and classes are two separate things. I can commend Marist for its attempt to transition online and to a hybrid format so quickly, while also critiquing some of the faults in their plan. The goal of higher education should be to continually improve education for students, and I aim to inform Marist that they can do better.
Another common claim is that if students can afford to attend college, then theoretically they can afford the technology to complete it in the digital era. This is simply not true. As a private college, Marist is able to offer more financial aid than other public schools. There are scholarships, grants and loans that help students attend college that simply cannot cover the unexpected costs of technology as well.
Instead of relying on and expecting students to have Wi-Fi access in general, let alone at specific times where attendance is mandatory, Marist should acknowledge the privilege that internet access is and instead supply it to students who lack access or devices or ensure a socially-distant space on campus for them to attend class and complete work. Students who have not returned to campus this semester for financial, health, safety, travel or any other reason, should not face a disadvantage because of something in Marist’s control. While the only safe and feasible option for class right now is a hybrid one, there are ways to ensure technology is not a hindrance to education.
Challenges like these have ultimate effects on the quality of education as well, thus furthering the inequity perpetuated by Marist’s response to the pandemic. To cite a 2019 study done about online learning by Spiros Protopsaltis and Sandy Baum, “Students in online education, and in particular underprepared and disadvantaged students, underperform and experience poor outcomes. Gaps in educational attainment across socioeconomic groups are even larger online than in traditional coursework.”
The least Marist can do is minimize the inequities students who lack these advantages face to try and gain equality during the struggles of online learning. Both last semester and this semester are uncharted territory, but in order to make the most of online education, Marist needs to re-examine its current plan for its faults and work to make sure that every Marist student has equal access to education.