The ongoing Covid 19 pandemic has had disastrous consequences for many recent graduates as indoor coffee consumption has plummeted. Peet’s, Starbucks, Blue Bottle and many third, fourth, and fifth wave coffee establishments have reported staffing cuts, hiring freezes and store closures reducing demand for newly minted college graduates.
Allma Nhater, a recent Grad whose thesis on Expanding Gender Neutral Settings for Confined Nocturnal Laboratory Animals was extremely well received nationally, reports disappointment. “In my dorm, I got really good, I mean, really good, at making those little hearts in the foam on top of lattes. I was looking forward to delighting customers with that after graduation.”
The trend seems to be accelerating. Colleges and Universities reported a falloff in Grievance Studies enrollments heading into 2020 and it’s looking worse for 2021. Dahla Swasted, admissions counselor at a small East Coast liberal arts college is worried, “there seems to a major crack in the armor as a result of the pandemic. Students seem to no longer believe that dropping $200,000 learning skills with no market value is a good use of resources.”
This phenomenon is testing the economic boundaries for all but the strongest universities. Unless things reverse, this could get a whole lot worse for students and institutions alike.
For now, Ms. Nhater and others like her, will have to be satisfied with the deferral of their student loans as the only available remuneration for their studies. “Oh well. I can wait this out” she says, “It is only a matter of time before the loans get forgiven anyway.”