Over the years, there has been a great amount of controversy surrounding college students and their engagement to socioeconomic events across the world. Many argue that social and economic issues affect college students, however many college students are not engaged with their community outside of their academics.
According to NPR, approximately 1 million fewer students were enrolled in college after the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating how social and economic issues were caused by COVID-19. This reduction of enrollment could have potentially been avoided if more students were engaging with news and information being provided by the community surrounding them.
“During COVID, I became very engaged with the world outside of my university using social media,” Jalen Brown said, a criminal justice student at the University of Arizona.
Research studies show that most college students receive their news from social media networks, online newspaper sources, discussions with professors and discussions with their peers. These methods of receiving news are not equivalent to students engaging with their community members and watching the news to verbally hear the events occurring within society.
College students should be more involved with their environment outside of their university and more engaged with national news to ensure they are preparing for socioeconomic changes. These changes can include an increase of rental rates, a reduction of daily resources, warning of danger, and much more.
Commonly, many college students relocate for their post-secondary education, suggesting that many are moving to locations they are unaware about. The idea of relocating should influence college students to be more involved in their community outside of their university due to them being unfamiliar with their environment.
College students should be encouraged to learn more about the community surrounding them as an effort to be more knowledgeable of their surroundings and aware of unknown dangers.
“Due to me being an online student, I have more time on my hand to be very involved with the community around my family and I,” Adrianna Hartsfield said, an undergraduate student at Aspen University.
Hartsfield is a 23-year-old mother and spends a great amount of time engaging with the local news and her community.
“I watch the news every day and I follow about six news channels on Twitter to receive updates,” Hartsfield said. “I have children; therefore, I am very attentive to what occurs throughout our community for the well-being of my kids because they are a first priority for me.”
Being a college student can come with numerous responsibilities and hardships, however being aware of your surroundings and the events occurring throughout the world can protect the socioeconomic status of college students. College students should apply improved efforts to engage with their community, watch the news and become more informed of the events occurring across the world.