Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.

COVID-19 propelled us into an existential crisis. Work and school environments changed seemingly overnight. According to Forbes, the economy took a crash rivaling the 2007-08 recession and Black Monday in 1987. Cultural norms dramatically shifted as we coped with preventative measures, including social distancing. An article published by Health Affairs discussed the COVID-19 pandemic creating a norm of social isolation. 

According to The New York Times, the World Health Organization declared the spread of COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. We are a little more than a year into the pandemic. Many have coped well with the changes, but we are still struggling with the lingering effects of the “existential crisis.” 

While the price of a college education continues to increase and the burden of student debt evolves into a full-blown crisis, the institution of higher education faces an identity crisis unlike anything it has ever experienced.”

The institution of higher education is facing the brunt of these lasting conundrums. Faced with no other option, schools shifted to remote learning at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. The Arizona Republic lays out a timeline of the university closures in 2020 in this article. A little over a year into the pandemic, however, and we are still logging onto our Zoom calls like clockwork. 

I’ve discussed before how many companies will be sticking with remote communication even beyond the pandemic. This poses a big implication for institutions of higher learning that exist primarily to prepare individuals for the workforce. 

If employers expect proficiency in the online environment, does it make sense for the university environment to reflect this and continue learning online? As universities struggle to define their business model, the online arena has already drastically changed the market. 

In our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles.” -Kent Walker, Search Engine Journal

When schools are online, many of the defining features that differentiate one university from the next become null and void. They cannot use their campus itself as a unique aspect if they are holding classes on Zoom and Microsoft Teams like every other school. Clubs and organizations begin to feel eerily similar to one another when they take place over a remote call. The network of people that universities of high prestige have spent incredible efforts in gatekeeping have become more centralized in the online world. 

The college degree became standardized, which presented an invaluable opportunity for market penetration. Programs like Google Career Certificates, announced in 2020, are competing with the college degree because they are providing many of the same benefits at a fraction of the cost. 

@rawanog

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♬ original sound – Rawan | Career Advice

According to their information page, Google Career Certificates provide remote learning opportunities in fields such as IT support, data analytics, project management, UX design and Android development. Offering an average salary of $63,600 for entry-level roles across their different fields, there is a much stronger return-on-investment when compared to a college degree, which usually creates a mountain of debt for millions of college students. 

Additionally, Google Career Certificates make the networking process more streamlined. They connect individuals with companies that recognize the Google Career Certificate program, as compared to the process of the college degree where the burden of networking and finding work outside of college falls heavily on the shoulders of students.

Google Career Certificates are $49 a month, according to Search Engine Journal. SEJ claims the average completion rate for the Certificate program is six months, adding up to about $294. The average price of tuition from a four-year, in-state public college totals about $38,320, according to educationdata.org. That number does not consider additional expenses outside of tuition such as housing, transportation, groceries etc.

Kent Walker, the Senior Vice President of Global Affairs for Google, stated in the same SEJ article that “In our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles.”

The Google Career Certificate is already replacing the degree, making alternatives to four-year universities become all the more attractive. 

While the price of a college education continues to increase and the burden of student debt evolves into a full-blown crisis, the institution of higher education faces an identity crisis unlike anything it has ever experienced. People are pursuing job-ready skills outside of college degrees. While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a unique opportunity for new entries to share the market, this doesn’t indicate that the allure to the college degree will go away overnight. 

That being said, it’s time for universities to seriously consider the threat of alternative learning platforms and find ways to compete with the competitors that are more willing to adapt to the demands of the fast-paced changes that come with the post-pandemic world. 

Cat Blouch can be reached at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @BlouchCat.