Just Browsing … Some Facts and Figures from the NEJHE Beat

Number of middle school students in afterschool programs, 2014: 2,300,000 Afterschool Alliance

Number in 2020: 1,800,000 Afterschool Alliance

Percentage of U.S. households with K–12 students that shifted to some form of online learning during the pandemic: 70%+ Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce

Percentage of households with incomes below $25,000 where the internet was always available: 55% Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce

Percentage of households with incomes above $200,000 where the internet was always available: 90% Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce

Estimated percentage of normal foot traffic at college and university libraries in the fall semester 2020 compared with fall semester 2019: 30% Primary Research Group

Percentage of college and university libraries that do not plan to limit the number of patrons in the library at one time after reopening in 2021: 32%. Primary Research Group

Estimated minimum number of net jobs lost at U.S. academic institutions from February 2020 to January 2021: 650,000 The Chronicle of Higher Education on U.S. Labor Department data

Percentage of Americans who, if able to live anywhere they wished, would choose a town or rural area 48% Gallup

Percentage who would choose a big or small city: 27% Gallup

Percentage who would choose a suburb: 25% Gallup

Change in average nightly hotel room rate in Boston from 2019 to 2020: -$77 Bisnow analysis of data from Hospitality Research firm STR

Occupancy rate of Boston hotel rooms in 2020: 33% Bisnow analysis of data from Hospitality Research firm STR

Distance from the northernmost point of Route 1 in Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida, in miles: 2,369 University of Maine

Estimated driving time from the University of Maine at Fort Kent to the Maine-New Hampshire border: 5 hours, 49 minutes Google Maps

John O. Harney is executive editor of The New England Journal of Higher Education.

“Jazz for John” collage by Montserrat College professor Timothy Harney.