At our last meeting, Eric Skipper, Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor of USCB spoke about the university experience during Covid. Skipper shared some very interesting information with the club about the plan and future of higher education in light of Covid and what university and college administrators have learned about online/remote learning during the last year. The future of higher education will definitely have an online component for remote learning and virtual classrooms. He shared a few facts and figures that were eye opening--he specifically mentioned ecommerce sales which have had a general growth of 10% over the last ten years, but during the first eight weeks of the pandemic ecommerce sales saw an 11% increase. We have a new normal for shopping online and product delievery by shipping rather than brick and mortar store fronts. He also spoke about the huge increases and decreases in wealth during the pandemic, and the great gap in wealth between white and black populations. Unfortunately, the K-shaped recovery is driving a deeper wedge into an already disparate economy. The hope and goal with more of an online and virtual learning system is that a more diverse population will have access to higher education. It is still true that a college education is a ticket up and out of poverty. A big thank you to Eric Skipper for meeting with us early in the morning and sharing some important information gleaned about the economy and higher education during Covid.
