Higher education across the country is currently experiencing an enrollment crisis, an issue which experts say was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fewer high school students are interested in pursuing a college degree. The Ohio Department of Education found a 12% decline in enrollment in the Fall 2022 semester across Ohio's public institutions.

The population of college-age students is also shrinking dramatically, a trend referred to as the "enrollment cliff."

Adding to the problem, college tuition has been steadily on the rise, particularly as states have slashed their financial support of higher education. Just last week, West Virginia University announced that it was eliminating about 16% of the university's full-time professors, and dropping 32 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, including all of its foreign language programs. West Virginia has cut support for the university by 36% over the past decade.

But this year, data from the National Clearinghouse Student Research Center suggests there seems to be an uptick in enrollment at community colleges.

We will discuss the enrollment decline to begin Tuesday's Sound of Ideas with experts from Northeast Ohio colleges and universities.

Later in the show, the coronavirus is back.

The approaching end of summer is bringing an increase in COVID cases both here in Ohio and nationally.

In Ohio, cases have been inching up slowly over the last several weeks and hospitalizations have increased a bit too. But Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, the director of the Ohio Department of Health, says the case load is still quite low. He says we are still experiencing some of lowest levels of case numbers since the start of the pandemic.

The coronavirus continues to mutate and evolve and recently two new sub-variants have raised concern. The current sub- variant driving cases in the nation has been dubbed "Eris." But a new one, BA.2.86, and dubbed "Pirola," is getting attention now too. Only a few cases of it have been confirmed globally including here in the United States. However, the number of mutations it carries has scientists keeping a close eye. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added the sub-variant to its watch list last week after a similar move by the World Health Organization.

How should you navigate the fall and winter health-wise? We brought back public health and infectious disease experts to talk about the ever-changing coronavirus.

Guests:

-Ken Schneck, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Director of the Leadership in Higher Education program, Baldwin Wallace University
-Angela Johnson, Ph.D., Vice President of Access and Completion, Cuyahoga Community College
-Sean Broghammer, Ph.D., Vice President for Enrollment Management, Kent State University
-Prakash Ganesh, MD, Medical Director, Cuyahoga County Board of Health
-Donald Dumford, MD, Director of Infection Prevention, Cleveland Clinic Akron General