The global pandemic has, among other things, largely curtailed the annual ritual of standardized testing, which colleges have long relied upon for determining admission. Without this and other metrics traditionally used for evaluating potential students, many schools are being forced to develop new procedures for their incoming class, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While there have long been concerns about the way colleges select their students, particularly in the wake of the celebrity admissions scandal last year, the pandemic has added a new urgency to this issue. Not only are colleges contending with a lack of standardized tests, but many are also finding that high schools changed their grading systems in the face of the pandemic, if they were even running at all. Some districts have gone so far as to close entirely for the remainder of the year, which makes it difficult to list sports and extracurricular activities on one's application.

There seems to be no clear consensus on what to do in response, although the Journal said a wide variety of possible solutions are being explored. Some are thinking about outsourcing student reviews to third parties, focusing on difficult-to-measure personality traits like grit or curiosity, or even handing them over to an AI algorithm.

While this is happening, though, some prospective students have taken the time during this pandemic to question whether they need college at all, or at least right now, said MarketWatch. It noted that, with many colleges closed, students (and their parents) are hesitant to spend huge amounts of tuition dollars for a semester of classes held over Zoom. At the same time, while some colleges have offered discounts for virtual learning, many others are loathe to do so. Part of this is a disconnect between schools and students on what they believe they're paying for. In general, schools tend to think they're in the business of selling, well, knowledge. While this is certainly a nice perk, many students are going to college for what is loosely termed 'the college experience,' that is, actually going to college in order to make new contacts, gain new skills, and come away with a memorable experience. If they can't get that, the students reason, why pay that much?

Employers might actually agree. A 2017 study outlined in the Harvard Business Review found that while a greater number of jobs now require a college education, even ones that never did before, it's less about the skills and knowledge that the employer thinks college imparted on its students and more about how a degree serves as a sign the worker has certain life experiences, commitment levels, and organization levels.

Other research has come to similar conclusions. A Rockefeller Foundation study that included HR professionals and C-suite executives found that more than half of employers surveyed (60 percent), see a a college diploma as a stand-in for work ethic, personal skills and mental capacity, as opposed to the actual skills associated with the job. The question, then, is not so much "What did you learn in college?" but "Are you bright and hardworking?" To these 60 percent of employers, a diploma means the answer to that question is "yes."

This may not be totally illogical. To complete high school, and then a four-year college degree, implies that job candidate have experience regularly waking up at a time they don't want to wake up to go somewhere they don't want to go to spend hours doing things they don't want to do, for the sake of people they may not particularly like, over and over, day after day, year after year. While somewhat depressing if one ponders too long, it nonetheless is a skill that virtually every job requires.

Another factor might be that a college degree can also act as a stand-in for social class. A Yale study from last year found that hiring managers tend to prefer candidates from higher social classes, and that people are quite good at determining where someone stands in the social hierarchy. Other studies have found that educational attainment is sometimes used as a proxy for social class, which may be accurate, as just over a third of Americans actually have a college degree and, despite efforts in many areas, students from working-class backgrounds receive lower grades and drop out more often than those from middle- and upper-class backgrounds.

With this in mind, it would seem education alone is not a good enough reason for many to go to college, causing some to forgo college while campuses remain closed. In light of this, colleges have been facing increasing financial pressures, with many expected to close down entirely over the next year.