Pandemic-To-Permanent

[dfrecore]

It is also the case that millions of 17-18 year old kids want the traditional college experience and they are the consumers of the product. If their desires change, maybe these things will come to pass. I think it is probably equally or more likely that their will be a strong reaction AGAINST online education by kids who had to do a year of schooling at home and who are MORE interested in that “conventional” college experience. These are YOLO/FOMO kids we are talking about and they have missed out on a lot over the last year.

I have 2 teens - 1 is a college student who just finished (is almost finished with) her first year, and 1 who is a HS junior.  Both were forced to do online school this past year, at least part of the time.

My college kid actually decided she prefers doing college in her PJ's, first thing when she wakes up, from her laptop in bed.  The local college is fully open, but has on-campus, hybrid and fully online options - and she decided to continue doing fully online courses so she can continue working 40+ hours a week.

My HS kid is not going back to "regular school" in the fall but is going to continue with his online charter school next year.  He is able to sleep in, do his schoolwork ~2-3 hours a day, work 25 hours a week, work out with his buddies, and nap for 2-3 hours a day - all while playing 3 sports with their workouts and practices and whatnot.  There is NO WAY he could do all of that going to school 6+ hours a day + homework.  Oh - and he and his friends (who are also all online) don't have the usual "it's a school night" said to them.  We just kind of figure what's the difference between Tuesday night and Friday night?  He doesn't have to get up early to go to school, so he's fine. SO much more flexibility there.

So, some kids have FOMO, but plenty of others made the switch to online and found it to be preferable.  I wouldn't have believed it, as mine both hated online stuff when they were younger and we were homeschooling (actually they don't LOVE online, but then they don't LOVE school in the first place, so I guess it's the lesser of 2 evils).  Since many of my kids' friends are also going to continue with online schooling, I think this is a trend.