We Want You Back: Uncovering the Influences on In-Person Instructional Operations in Fall 2020

Institutional responses to COVID-19 are a topic of much concern. Emergent research has suggested that politics and polarization were more strongly linked, than was COVID-19, to institutions engaging in-person instruction for Fall 2020. This study used Structural Equation Modeling to test this trend. Based upon political polarization and dependency, we used data from the College Crisis Initiative (C2i), to test how state and county sociopolitical features, state and county COVID-19 rates, and state revenue losses influenced in-person instruction by September 9th, 2020. The accepted overall model, developed using the full sample, suggested that County Sociopolitical Features (r=.13) were the stronger influence on the decision, followed by Pandemic Severity (r=-.10) and State Sociopolitical Features (r=.09). In recognizing that institutional subsectors may be uniquely sensitive to these factors we tested our models using the following subgroups: 4-year public, 4-year private, and 2-year public institutions. State Sociopolitical Features (r=.17) were the only significant influence on 4-year public institutions. Whereas 4-year private and 2-year public institution decisions were influenced by both State- and County-Sociopolitical Features – these features were respectively 2x and 3x stronger than were state features. Finally, Pandemic Severity (r=-.09) only influenced 4-year private institutional decisions to engage in-person instruction but to a weaker degree than both levels of sociopolitical features. Overall, models suggest that COVID-19 was not a consistently strong factor for institutions when deciding in-person instruction and that sociopolitical features were more influential, including for 4-year private institutions – which illustrates a propensity towards remaining in favor with sociopolitical “in-groups.”