In a tweet from May of this year, the official Columbia Football account cited a ranking that refers to Columbia as the best university in the country when it comes to obtaining a front-office position at investment banks. While many Columbia students strive to secure jobs in finance or consulting, Columbia Athletics in particular provides its athletes with abundant opportunities to pursue these careers once their days of competition on Columbia’s fields and courts are behind them.
Ethan Abrams, a former baseball player who graduated from Columbia College in 2019, welcomed the competitiveness of the University’s rigorous academic and athletic slate. However, it wasn’t until after he joined the Light Blue that he noticed many athletes were focused on pursuing jobs in the same industries in New York City.
“I grew up in San Diego and never heard people talking about working on Wall Street, but when you’re at Columbia, everyone’s like, ‘I’m interning at Goldman Sachs this summer,’ and slowly it becomes the new normal.”
The history of Columbia Athletics is not as revered as the school’s academic reputation. Historically, Columbia’s football team is one of the Ivy League’s most unsuccessful—its 59-year drought for a conference title is by far the longest among the Ancient Eight. Across every sport, it is rare for a Columbia athlete to pursue a professional athletic career. Many of Columbia’s facilities are 100 blocks uptown at the Baker Athletic Complex, meaning, for most sports, Columbia requires its athletes to travel extraordinary distances to attend practices and competitions.
The distance alone would be a hard sell for any athletics department, but Columbia Athletics tries to make up for the distance barrier through a robust career network and the infinite opportunities that a metropolis like Manhattan has to offer.
Out of 478 Columbia athletes who graduated from 2017 to 2019, around 44 percent of them pursued employment in the financial services and consulting industries.
Among 27 sports teams, baseball, lightweight rowing, men’s squash, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, lacrosse, and volleyball have over 50 percent of the team enter into a career in finance or consulting.
On the men’s tennis team, which has the highest turnout for a career in finance among the 27 teams, nine of the 10 team members who graduated from 2017 to 2019 went into a career in finance or consulting.
Only 7.6 percent of these athletes continued to play in professional sports after graduation, which is the third-most popular career option among all athletes.
For swaths of student-athletes, there are two sectors into which Manhattan provides the smoothest gateway: the financial services and management consulting industries. The data reveals a staggering centralization of career choice for Columbia athletes, who pursued opportunities in finance and management consulting at a distinctly higher rate than any other industry.
In a Beyond Columbia Survey conducted by the Center for Career Education in 2019, Columbia athletes found careers in financial services and consulting at an 8 percent higher rate than their peers. Career paths in the general student body were considerably more diverse, with more students pursuing fields like technology or seeking graduate programs.
Though Columbia athletes come to the University to pursue a unique combination of academic and athletic experiences, once here, many student-athletes utilize the University’s deep system of career networks to matriculate to finance and consulting firms in New York City.
“They’re always available”: The culture of opportunities
At one of Michael Murphy’s first football team meetings, he learned of Columbia Athletics’ career development program, a resource offered exclusively to athletes.
“They did a great job of coming in and telling all the athletes what career development was and what it can provide to us as student-athletes at Columbia,” Murphy, who graduated from Columbia College in 2020, said. “They were one of the first people we met coming in, alongside our academic advisor. It didn’t take long.”
Perhaps the most consequential part of Columbia Athletics’ career development program is the extensive network of people in industries like finance and consulting to whom it offers access. Though connections to alumni are provided to every team through formal networking events, different teams’ coaches and cultures provide exclusive inroads to these careers.
The men’s and women’s tennis teams are examples of Columbia’s unique pathway into competitive industries; Spectator found that the tennis teams had the highest concentration of recent graduates pursuing finance and consulting.
Victor Pham, a 2019 graduate of Columbia College, was a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year on the men’s tennis team. Pham was a skilled athlete who established himself both within the Ancient Eight and on a national level, reaching national ranks as high as No. 7 during his junior year. In addition to his success on the court, he mentioned the tennis team’s supportive culture, stewarded by head coach Howard Endelman, as the piece of his time at Columbia that he deems most special.
“I got dinner with Howie [Endelman] two days ago. … That should tell you the kind of tight relationship that we still have,” Pham said. “I still come to him with questions with post-grad stuff, whether that be work or another topic that I want his opinion on.”
Howard Endelman, a 1987 Columbia College graduate, is an accomplished professional who worked at Merrill Lynch and founded a private equity investment firm based in India. He offered valuable advice and connections for tennis players interested in a Wall Street job, Pham emphasized.
“Since the tennis team is a bit of a smaller group, we’re pretty close-knit, and it’s very easy for me as a student to reach out to an alum in a capacity I may be interested in,” Pham said. “I don’t think there’s anyone in the country who’s been as successful off the court in the professional world as Howie, and who is now a top tennis coach at a top 10 team.”
The men’s golf team enjoys a similar route into the world of Wall Street. The team’s volunteer assistant coach, Stephen LaRouere, graduated from the Lions’ golf team and Columbia College in 2013 to work at IBM and currently works at the investment firm Guggenheim Partners. He gives student-athletes interested in finance crucial help when starting their career journeys, offering advice and connections for them to speak to as well.
“I review résumés, I certainly connect members of the team to certain alumni that I think could be helpful, I’ve given many mock interviews. When it comes to investment banking or consulting, … I have a background in that, so I’m able to know what those interviews look like,” LaRouere said.
Though career development is a central component of the support system offered to athletes, Columbia Athletics casts a wide net of programming to cultivate the professional development of its athletes. Its programs tend to mirror those offered to the rest of the student body, but a smaller community of athletes allows for a greater focus on each student.
Associate Athletics Director for Enrichment Services Jessica De Palo explained that the Success Through Well-Being Initiative contains much of Columbia’s support system for its athletes, including services like mental health, athletic nutrition and sport psychology as well.
While advisors like De Palo are continuously available for students to make appointments, the career help stretches further than one-on-one counseling. There are frequent seminars, panels, and networking events solely for athletes to attend.
The athletic community is far smaller than the greater Columbia community, as there are only around 600 athletes who represent the Light Blue. The smaller concentration of students invited to these events creates a more intimate experience than the average career fair or panel.
For Danielle Buttinger, a 2018 graduate of Columbia college, a former field hockey forward and current consultant at Sia Partners, Columbia’s networking opportunities helped jumpstart her career in New York.
“Once a year, we would have a networking event where there’d be a panel of past athletes who would come in and talk about their jobs and we could ask questions about different industries and learn more about what alumni are up to in different areas that they’re in,” Buttinger remembered.
She noted that it was the networking events from her sophomore year onward that provided significant help in her process.
“One night, [the event] would be marketing and sports, and anyone who was an alum in that industry would come back to campus, talk about their experience, and if you couldn’t make those nights, they would provide you with a list of contacts with people who were open to having people reach out to them about questions or opportunities,” Buttinger said.
While student groups at Columbia offer similar career development opportunities for their respective networks, the athletic department has a unique institutionalized outreach that elevates the quality of help every athlete receives.
“Everybody who goes through Columbia knows how demanding the academics are, and I think it takes a real appreciation to understand how to balance all of that while being a Division I athlete. It’s a lot of time and sacrifice, and it really is an incredibly unique experience that, unless you’re a part of it, you don’t really understand exactly what it is,” LaRouere said.
#OnlyHere: Career development’s impact on recruits
Follow any Columbia Athletics team or coach’s social media presence, and you will notice a recurring theme and hashtag: #OnlyHere, the program’s primary recruiting message that emphasizes Columbia’s unique position as an Ivy League institution in a sprawling city like New York. Posts with the hashtag frequently advertise New York as a stomping ground for students, both on a recreational and a professional level. The messaging certainly makes an impact on recruits, athletes said.
“We had a coaching staff at the time, when I was coming out of high school, that was very active on social media, and specifically Twitter, and they would make these posts about the career development and the job placement figures among graduating seniors,” Murphy remembered.
“They did a great job as a coaching staff at telling us that career development does such an excellent job at building that network and that, basically, at the end of the day, leads to a job after college.”
Pham agreed that the University’s career development program played a fundamental role in his decision to come to Columbia.
“When I was looking at schools, there were three main things that I looked at: academics, tennis, and the third, most important one was career development. So, after I graduated, I wanted to know that that particular institution would help me set up myself for a good professional start, and it definitely swayed me; Howie Endelman’s experience on Wall Street was very enticing.”
Even more, the lack of opportunities for Columbia athletes to play their sports at the professional level centers turn recruits’ focus to pre-professional activities and postgraduate success.
“They kind of recognize that most people aren’t going to stay in field hockey when they graduate, and they give you the tools and the opportunity to explore things at Columbia that have to do with post-grad,” Buttinger said.
Since most sports at Columbia do not facilitate a consistent pipeline to major sports leagues, Buttinger’s sentiment was shared among a number of athletes.
“I knew I wasn’t going to play in the NFL or anything like that,” Murphy mused. “But I knew that the number one thing coming out of college was going to be getting a job, and I saw incredibly positive figures about students graduating and taking on a role pretty much right after graduation.”
LaRouere also noted that his specific role on the golf team, tailored to assist athletes with keen professional interests, played a prominent role in the program’s recruitment initiatives.
“I think that Coach [Rich] Mueller likes to highlight the fact that we have me as a resource, with career development, specifically. I’m not going to help anybody out with a golf swing or anything like that, but I am an outlet who is very familiar with our alumni network, so it’s definitely something that’s highlighted in our recruiting efforts,” he said.
Sports beyond graduation
Columbia Athletics’ effects on its athletes last long after graduation. The career network stretches far beyond specific teams or even jobs; it is an endless web of people willing to offer insight into the professional world.
But while some may think of their experience as an athlete as one that resulted in professional advantages, many also view the student-athlete experience as one that creates the intangible qualities that have made them who they are today. Murphy acknowledged the network’s facilitation of valuable opportunities, but said that being an athlete at Columbia fostered a deeper, more important impact on each athlete.
“At the end of the day, the fact that you’re a Columbia student-athlete, no matter what sport you play, it says something about you. It says that you’re a hard-worker, you’re dedicated, you’re ambitious, and I feel like no matter what sport you play, it says a lot about your character.”
One of the driving factors of the success of Columbia’s athletes comes from employers who have a persisting preference for student athletes. An athletic experience on a résumé makes a decidedly impactful difference for employers, especially if those employers were student-athletes as well, athletes explained.
“Having the Columbia baseball network is huge, but having any athlete network is big because I can almost reach out to anyone who’s played college sports and say, ‘Look, we have these similarities, we have some common ground, you know I work well on a team.’ It really, really helps in your elevator pitch meeting when you’re in your early 20s trying to get a full-time job,” Abrams commented.
In a world struck by the COVID-19 pandemic, with Ivy League sports on hold, the Columbia network has not stopped churning, remaining one of the department’s strongest assets. In fact, Murphy said that the extra time from being at home meant that there were even more opportunities for students to connect to each other and alumni.
“It seems that people, now more than ever, are willing to talk to us, and hear our story and hear how the pandemic has affected us,” Murphy said. “I’ve set up almost 100 conversations with Columbia alumni who are happy to talk to me and give any kind of advice and feedback that they may have.”
Ultimately, the Columbia Athletics network is an insulated community of opportunities and support, built to withstand challenges or difficulties that affect athletes.
“Columbia Athletics will definitely help me in my career journey, through ups or downs, the network will always be there,” Abrams reflected.
When Chaitanya Reddy Gurijala, a student pursuing his master’s degree in computer science at Stony Brook University, lost his internship, he knew he was not the only one looking for answers about job availability. Looking to help others in a similar position, he started Hiring20 and has since been collecting information about the hiring status of jobs and companies.
As of May 14, he noted 319 canceled internships and jobs. Here they are, color-coded by industry and scaled relative to the company’s approximate size. Hover or tap to see each company’s name, industry, and size range.
The impact of these job losses can be seen across all industries, but it is more apparent in some than others.
It should come as no surprise to see job losses in the service sector and travel-related industries—these are some of the largest industries impacted by the pandemic. Thirty companies among these industries have canceled internships.
The biggest industry reflected in the cancellation data is Internet and software.
But the cancellations largely do not affect the Internet giants—over 58 percent of software companies impacted are small, with less than 1,000 employees.
In fact, 40 percent of all lost jobs reflected here are from companies with 1,000 employees or fewer, which in some industries makes them small businesses.
By no means is this data a complete representation of the total job losses due to COVID-19, but it is a glimpse into just how wide-reaching this issue is.
Uncertainty Looms as Student Jobs are Disappearing During the Great Lockdown
Canceled jobs, hiring freezes, and general uncertainty for the future have taken job opportunities from many students amid the COVID-19 pandemic—but this is just a reflection of a larger issue. The U.S. economy is entering a recession that threatens to be worse than any other in the past: the Great Lockdown. Small businesses across the country are in danger of closing, the unemployment rate is the highest it has been since the Great Depression, government responses are slow and hard to access, and experts are unsure of the path for recovery for industries impacted the most.
“We are asking young people to do a lot here, which just seems kind of paradoxical because what we're asking most people to do is stay home,” says Caitlin Zaloom, a sociologist and professor at New York University whose work focuses on the intersection of culture, student finance, and the economy. “But in staying home, they’re also sacrificing the lives that they could be building.”
Studies have shown that students graduating into an economic recession tend to have lower incomes over time, take longer to establish their careers, and are more vulnerable to social consequences—like less-stable family lives and health issues later in life. Also, students who are not graduating this semester face other immediate concerns, including their ability to pay their student contribution for financial aid, which is a portion of tuition that students are expected to pay through scholarships, summer employment, work-study, or other jobs.
The uncertainty of what this pandemic might mean for young peoples’ futures—within specific industries, in the immediate future, or over the course of their lives—creates a far-reaching feeling of fear for all who are impacted.
The Great Lockdown
Barnard senior Alisha Sahay has felt the impacts of the Great Lockdown firsthand. Most of the companies she has heard back from have enacted hiring freezes that seem to be in place for the foreseeable future.
“The job search has been a little bit frustrating because it’s not like there’s anything wrong with me or my background; it’s purely just something that companies are going through,” she tells me.
“It's definitely really scary,” she adds later. For her and much of the class of 2020, the lack of jobs is at the forefront of their minds. “This whole job situation is all I can really think about because before any of this started, it was so clear as to what I was going to be doing. But now I have no clue,” Sahay says.
With data from LionSHARE, a job posting site for Columbia students hosted by Handshake, we can see where some of this uncertainty is coming from. Postings rates right now are among the lowest of this academic year. The only other time of year that experienced similar lows was late December—an annual period with historically low job openings and, according to Forbes, with 26 percent fewer new hires than any typical month.
Since March 7, the average job postings on LionSHARE has been consistently low, as compared to average posting rates since September 2019.
Of the job postings that remain, a rising percentage of them are remote. Even so, the number of remote postings is still relatively small compared to all of the jobs advertised on LionSHARE. Further, not all industries can transfer to remote jobs.
There are not enough remote jobs on LionSHARE to draw a conclusion on the national availability of remote opportunities. The pre-quarantine norm for remote work, however, only included a minority of most jobs. According to the 2017-18 American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 29 percent of workers were able to work from home.
According to that survey, finance, professional and business services, and information (including Internet and software) are the three industries that employ the largest percentage of people who are able to work from home in non-pandemic times. Meanwhile, leisure, hospitality, agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting are the industries that are the least able to transition to remote work.
At Columbia, economics and computer science are the most popular fields of study, so jobs in finance, business, and technology are common pathways for graduates. In fact, software engineering, business analytics, and management consulting are among the most common fields for jobs posted on LionSHARE.
These figures are likely to change because of how COVID-19 has pushed workers who would not ordinarily have the opportunity to work from home find creative ways to do so.
“How we’re going to understand this going forward and the uncertainty there really is quite extreme because it isn’t only that there will be fewer jobs. … We’re heading into a massive economic contraction,” Zaloom says. “But the question is going to be: What is the distribution of jobs that are there and still available to people?”
In order to examine that question, we can also organize LionSHARE posting data by industry and note the percentage change in the average daily posting of different industries after March 1. Some industries have been omitted because they have limited job postings.
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The industries that have had the largest decrease relative to other industries in daily postings are not surprising—among them service sector staples: hotels and accommodation, restaurants and food service, and tourism.
Those least impacted are not surprising either. Many of them relate to the health sector: biotech and life sciences; medical devices; and research.
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Service sector industries are some that Alexander Hertel-Fernadez, a political economist and associate professor who studies relationships between business, labor, and public policy at the School of International and Public Affairs, thinks will face some of the largest changes over time.
“Will we still have places like Las Vegas in two years?” Hertel-Fernandez asks. “Given that people may be really uncomfortable being in large social gatherings like that, will people still be comfortable taking long, international trips with hundreds of people on a plane tightly together?”
Sandra Black, an economics professor at the School of International and Public Affairs whose research focuses on labor and education, adds that the service industry, especially in comparison to other industries, has an uncertain future after the pandemic. She says, the tech industry, for example, will be able to adapt easily, “whereas anything to do with the service sector is struggling to figure out kind of what their future looks like.”
The tech industry is an interesting case, as it is one of the few industries that has experienced increased consumer demand. Tech companies, especially the largest ones, will likely recover quickly from the pandemic. Black goes on to point out some examples of how tech has grown during the pandemic.
“Who had heard of Zoom before this? Now everyone’s using Zoom. The idea of telehealth, the healthcare market online, is something that hasn’t really been explored much, but now I think it’ll probably kind of become much bigger going forward once people start adopting that kind of technology,” Black said. “All the tech industry is probably going to have a whole lot of demand now.”
Telemedicine answers some of the questions of what healthcare will look like in the future. Healthcare has been harder hit in the number of LionSHARE postings, but as Zaloom notes, it might be more appreciated than ever. “There are certain professions, it seems to me, that are going to be seen as more and more essential, which also happened to be professions that were already on the rise, and particularly in healthcare.”
Other health-related jobs seem to be relatively less impacted than some of those in the service industry. The industries of medical devices, biotech and life sciences, and research, while impacted, have not experienced a drastic change relative to the data for other industries.
Sahay is hoping to work in media and journalism after graduation, but as pickings are slim, she is expanding her search to anything adjacent to her interests—and is really open to anything that will help her gain experience.
“It feels like everything is dark and you’re just blindly trying to grasp at anything that comes your way,” she says.
Searching for a job in an economic shutdown is like wading into uncharted waters. Black notes that coronavirus recession is unlike those we have experienced. Health restrictions, shutdowns, and hiring freezes at many institutions, including Columbia and Barnard, makes the job search even harder.
“I think this is the case where we know that it’s hard during the recession and you take less-desirable jobs and it makes it harder to get caught up to people who start out their careers in better times” Black says. “There aren’t even really jobs to find because of the pandemic. And so I think we don’t know what the consequences are going to be.”
Hertel-Fernadez cautions that “graduating in a recession has very deep economic and social costs for individuals over their entire lives.” He says, “In good times, the jobs that you get immediately after graduating from college are very important because they set you up for the trajectory that you’re going to have going forward.”
Immediate Consequences: a Jobless Summer
On April 14, Barnard announced that it would waive its summer contribution for incoming and returning students in light of the pandemic. Since the fall, Heven Haile, a Columbia College junior, and Colby King, a Columbia College sophomore, have been leading the charge to similarly eliminate the student contribution for Columbia College students on financial aid.
Haile and King have been collecting testimonials from students in an effort to get rid of the student contribution, but the pandemic has added urgency to this push for reform. “It’s really shitty that it took a pandemic to finally make some progress on this,” Haile says. As students lose jobs that would have helped pay their contribution, it will be even harder for some to afford this coming semester. Haile hopes that the pandemic will lead to the long-term abolishment of the student contribution and to more changes to financial aid at Columbia.
This reform could have a significant, positive impact on a large portion of students. Ana Barrios, a Columbia College junior, whose internship at the United Nations for the summer was postponed, will, fortunately, be able to complete her work remotely. But she explained that she relies on funding from that job to pay her student contribution and support her family. “For the summer, if I’m not able to do this, or if I don't get funding because it got postponed, then I’m going to have to see if I [can] get hired at Domino’s or something,” she says.
Compounding their feelings of financial uncertainty, students might be missing essential career-building and networking opportunities. Jennie Yu, a Barnard sophomore, lost an internship at the United States Department of Homeland Security, where she had been working since September and was planning to continue there this summer.
“It was actually really disappointing. This was the first internship I’ve had that I could say I 100 percent enjoyed it, even though I was getting up at 5:30 a.m. and had [to travel] an hour and a half,” Yu says.
Illustration by Lisa Evseeva
Other students share Yu’s feeling of disappointment. Paul Spezza, a junior in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, had planned to spend most of his summer sponsored by Columbia while he worked with a nonprofit organization in Northern Uganda. This work would be an extension of his work with GlobeMed, a student organization on campus.
The opportunity was especially unique for Spezza. “I was really looking forward to engaging with a new community, a new aspect of healthcare, and seeing how I could connect my engineering to more purposes for general humanity,” he shares.
However, after University President Lee Bollinger’s announcement on April 23, Spezza learned that this internship, along with another Columbia-sponsored trip to Ecuador he was planning to attend, was canceled. Though Spezza recognized that traveling to Uganda would put the community that he intended to serve at risk, he was disappointed.
“So much of what you can do in the labor market depends on the skills that you gained, the connections that you need, the work experiences that you had,” Hertel-Fernandez says, “and if you are missing that first or second or third stepping stone, it’s really hard to rebuild that trajectory. It takes a long time.”
Barrios acknowledges the importance of her own connections in the context of her internship at the U.N. “Just through interacting with my bosses and other people that already work there, [this internship] makes getting an entry-level job a lot easier.” In Barrios’ eyes, her job will help her access multilateral and international organizations—where she hopes to work after she graduates.
Spezza views this summer as an opportunity for alternative forms of career advancement. For example, he found a COVID-19-related competition affiliated with Johns Hopkins University: the Design COVID-19 Design Challenge. For this challenge, students and professionals formed teams to brainstorm immediate solutions to some of the largest issues the pandemic poses.
“I do recognize that the track of my professional development has changed significantly because of limitations placed on us and having travel restrictions,” Spezza shares. “So in terms of those experiences, I know that at least at this point, I won’t be able to get them back, but maybe [some] time in the future, I’ll be able to have that experience either over winter break or next year. Luckily, I’m only a junior, so there is a bit more time for me.”
Long Term: The Class of COVID-19
The time Spezza says he has to make up for this summer’s lost opportunities is not available to graduating students. Though the future is still uncertain, one way to understand the present situation is with insight from classes that graduated in similar situations.
“I graduated from college in 2008. [It was] right at the top of the Great Recession, and I saw many of my friends and classmates really struggling initially to get jobs, to get even internships,” Hertel-Fernandez says. “It’s been heartbreaking to see how long it took for many of them to establish the sort of careers that I think they would have wanted.”
When Hertel-Fernandez graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in political science, he was lucky to secure an internship at a political think tank—which eventually became a full-time job. He felt especially grateful when he saw that many of his friends were not as fortunate.
This, in a nutshell, is an example of the phenomenon known as scarring—the long-term effects on people from a particular economic or social experience. In this case, those unlucky enough to be entering the job market during a recession face outcomes that compound over time.
Research shows that college graduates who enter the workforce during a recession earn less for at least 10 to 15 years than those who graduate with the same level of education during periods of economic growth. Additionally, at least one study shows that those same graduates are less likely to have a stable family and are more likely to suffer from “deaths of despair,” or deaths related to substance abuse or other unhealthy habits.
Data from Columbia graduates reflect this trend. According to data from the United States Department of Education’s College Scorecard, members of the classes of 2007, 2009, and 2011 who were employed six years after enrolling at the University had similar average incomes. But 10 years after enrolling at the University, the class of 2009 had a lower average income than the classes of 2007 and 2011.
Mean income of employed Columbia undergraduates
post-enrollment
However, over time, the mean income
for the class of 2009 is lower than
that of classes that did not graduate
during the Great Recession.
Student incomes six years
after first enrolling at Columbia are
similar across classes.
Mean income of $90K
$60K
$30K
8 years after enrolling
6 years after enrolling
10 years after enrolling
Class of 2009
Class of 2011
Class of 2007
Class of 2013
Source: College Scorecard
Graphic by Eve Washington
Mean income of employed Columbia
undergraduates post-enrollment
Over time the mean income for the class of 2009 is lower than that of classes that did not graduate during the Great Recession.
Mean income of 90K
60K
30K
6
8
10
Number of years after enrolling
Class of 2007
Class of 2009
Class of 2011
Class of 2013
Source: College Scorecard
Graphic by Eve Washington
At the start of a new recession, the classes of 2020 and 2021 could end up in a similar position as the classes of 2008 and 2009. However, it is not necessarily fair to compare these two periods of economic decline.
“In some ways, it’s hard to compare the two—the Great Recession to now—because folks that are graduating in May or in June may still well be in quarantine or social distancing,” Hertel-Fernandez says. “During the great recession, fewer companies were hiring, but ways to get your foot in the door are no longer an option during stay-at-home.”
Given the public health consequences of COVID-19, it is impossible to predict the severity of the recession. “It’s quite possible the [recession] that we’re going through right now is going to be many times larger,” Hertel-Fernandez adds.
In the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook for April, experts projected world gross domestic product growth in 2020 to fall by 3 percent. This pales in comparison to the Great Recession’s 0.1 percent decline, making the crisis the world’s worst recession since the Great Depression.
For students and graduates alike, this means tremendous uncertainty and fear of the future. Though it is impossible to speculate the consequences of this recession entirely, the biggest factor in determining the future is the policy decisions being made right now.
“A lot of people are really focused on reopening the economy and what we really need to think about [is] how to do it in a situation where the underlying problem is not a demand-driven problem or a lack of consumer demand. It’s really this virus that we need to figure out how to manage,” Black says.
“I think a lot of the recovery depends on our responses now and how the government responds in terms of giving money to businesses and which businesses they target. So if we target big corporations, if we leave the small businesses, suffering then, as you might imagine, the small businesses will close and the largest will survive.”
Hertel-Fernandez adds that policy changes also impact the individual. “How much help the government gives to boost the economy is going to make a big difference in whether or not in 30 years young people are going to have good economic, good social prospects.”
As graduates adapt to this new economic reality, it feels like a strange, daunting end to their four years. “I think the class of 2020 definitely had a perception of what [its] senior spring was going to look like,” Sahay says. She pauses and remembers that yesterday was supposed to be her senior gala.
“I would’ve pictured myself getting ready with my friends, going to a senior gala, and knowing that I had a job in my hand. [Then] just spending these last few days and weeks with friends who I knew I wasn't going to see again,” she says. “Knowing and having the sense of stability, knowing that I kind of knew what the next step was, which was going to be work at some job. But now that’s all suspended in the air at the moment. It does feel daunting.”
Walking around New York City can be stressful. Walking around New York City after drinking a cup of coffee and a glass of juice and a glass of water at breakfast can be very stressful. I have experienced this type of stress, and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone—especially if you are like me and afraid to ask restaurant hostesses, baristas, and store managers to use their restroom.
As the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries approach, Columbia affiliates—including students, professors, staff, and administrators—have demonstrated their support for candidates through campaign donations. Cory Booker (D-NJ) leads the way as the candidate with the most money raised through University-affiliated donations, according to data released by the Federal Election Commission.
But while Booker may have raised the highest total amount of money in campaign donations from Columbia affiliates, he isn’t the candidate who received the highest number of donations. Rather, Bernie Sanders (D-VT) saw the most individual donations, with 275 Columbia affiliates donating overall. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) follows closely after Sanders, with 179 affiliate donations, and Booker comes in third with 43.
Democrat
Total of 712 contributions to Democratic
candidates from Columbia affiliates.
Widths of lines represent number
of contributions
15
91
46
43
275
173
Harris
Biden
Trump
Buttigieg
Warren
Booker
Sanders
Republican
The only Republican Columbia affiliates have contributed to is Trump.
15
Buttigieg
Harris
Biden
Warren
Trump
Booker
Sanders
Democrat
Total of 712 contributions to Democratic
candidates from Columbia affiliates.
Widths of lines represent number
of contributions
15
91
46
173
43
275
Warren
Biden
Trump
Booker
Sanders
Buttigieg
Harris
Republican
The only Republican Columbia affiliates have contributed to is Trump.
15
Trump
Democrat
Total of 712 contributions to Democratic
candidates from Columbia affiliates.
Widths of lines represent
number of contributions
15
91
46
173
43
275
Buttigieg
Biden
Harris
Warren
Booker
Sanders
Republican
The only Republican Columbia affiliates
have contributed to is Trump.
15
Trump
According to FEC data as of Sept. 30, 2019, Columbia affiliates have raised a total of $20,879.91 for Booker—the second-highest amount raised by a university for his campaign, tailing right behind Stanford University, which raised $37,981.67. Booker, a New Jersey native, has based his campaign on key issues such as fighting for economic and racial equality and advocating for marijuana legalization and criminal justice reform, among others.
Top 10 university contributors to Booker, Sanders, Warren campaigns
Cory Booker
University of Washington
University of Kansas
Stanford University
Rutgers University
NYU School of Medicine
New York University
MIT
Eastwick College
Columbia University
Berkeley College
$40,000
$30,000
$20,000
$10,000
0
Bernie Sanders
University of Washington
University of Michigan
University of Illinois
University of Chicago
University of California
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Stanford University
Harvard University
Columbia University
$40,000
$30,000
$20,000
$10,000
0
Elizabeth Warren
Yale University
University of Washington
University of Pennsylvania
University of Michigan
University of California
UCLA
UC Berkeley
MIT
Harvard University
Harvard Law School
$40,000
$30,000
$20,000
$10,000
0
Top 10 university contributors to
Booker, Sanders, Warren campaigns
Cory Booker
University of Washington
University of Kansas
Stanford University
Rutgers University
NYU School of Medicine
New York University
MIT
Eastwick College
Columbia University
Berkeley College
0
$10,000
$20,000
$30,000
$40,000
Bernie Sanders
University of Washington
University of Michigan
University of Illinois
University of Chicago
University of California
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Stanford University
Harvard University
Columbia University
0
$10,000
$20,000
$30,000
$40,000
Elizabeth Warren
Yale University
University of Washington
University of Pennsylvania
University of Michigan
University of California
UCLA
UC Berkeley
MIT
Harvard University
Harvard Law School
0
$10,000
$20,000
$30,000
$40,000
Top 10 university contributors
to Booker, Sanders,
Warren campaigns
Cory Booker
University of Washington
University of Kansas
Stanford University
Rutgers University
NYU School of Medicine
New York University
MIT
Eastwick College
Columbia University
Berkeley College
0
$10,000
$20,000
$30,000
$40,000
Bernie Sanders
University of Washington
University of Michigan
University of Illinois
University of Chicago
University of California
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Stanford University
Harvard University
Columbia University
0
$10,000
$20,000
$30,000
$40,000
Elizabeth Warren
Yale University
University of Washington
University of Pennsylvania
University of Michigan
University of California
UCLA
UC Berkeley
MIT
Harvard University
Harvard Law School
0
$10,000
$20,000
$30,000
$40,000
But as a candidate who isn’t a Columbia alumnus and doesn’t have any direct ties to the University, it may come as a surprise for many that Booker is a frontrunner in money raised through campaign donations.
According to political science professor Donald P. Green, whose research focuses on voting behavior, partisanship, and campaign finance, a potential answer for Booker’s popularity among the Columbia community may arise from his relative proximity to the University and his ideological outlook.
“He’s from New Jersey and many of our faculty and students in the community live in New Jersey and commute to campus. He’s also a fairly congenial person in terms of his outlook to Columbia faculty and staff,” Green said.
He went on to note the discrepancy between Booker’s lead as the candidate with the highest amount of affiliate-raised campaign donations and his total number of donations.
“[Booker’s] donors are obviously digging more deeply into their pockets to make donations, which is why the absolute dollar figures are a little bit misleading,” Green said.
Of the 43 Columbia affiliates who donated to Booker, the most common type of affiliation was professor, senior researcher, and alumni. On the other hand, Sanders, who had nearly six times the number of donors than Booker did, largely received donations from Columbia affiliates who were teachers, academics, and reading specialists. Sanders has raised a total of $15,935.10 from Columbia affiliates as of Sept. 30, 2019.
Columbia affiliate donations to candidates by contributor type
Postgraduate
Law/Politics
Faculty
Academia
Student
Medicine/Science
Finance/Economics/Corporate
Admin
Teaching positions
Other
Graduate students
Education
100
200 donations
Warren for President, Inc.
Pete for America, Inc.
Marianne Williamson for President
Kamala Harris for the People
Julian for the Future
Inslee for America
Gillibrand 2020
Friends of John Delaney
Friends of Andrew Yang
Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.
De Blasio 2020
Cory 2020
Bullock for President
Biden for President
Beto for America
Bernie 2020
Bennet for America
Amy for America
Other includes donor titles film projectionist, fundraiser, journalist, librarian, programmer,
psychiatrist, public health, reading specialist, tech manager, writer.
Columbia affiliate donations to candidates by contributor type
Finance/Economics/Corporate
Postgraduate
Academia
Student
Admin
Law/Politics
Graduate students
Education
Medicine/Science
Teaching positions
Faculty
Other
100
200 donations
Warren for
President, Inc.
Pete for America, Inc.
Marianne Williamson
for President
Kamala Harris
for the People
Julian for the Future
Inslee for America
Gillibrand 2020
Friends of John Delaney
Friends of Andrew Yang
Donald J. Trump for
President, Inc.
De Blasio 2020
Cory 2020
Bullock for President
Biden for President
Beto for America
Bernie 2020
Bennet for America
Amy for America
Other includes donor titles film projectionist, fundraiser, journalist, librarian, programmer,
psychiatrist, public health, reading specialist, tech manager, writer.
Columbia affiliate donations to
candidates by contributor type
Academia
Faculty
Graduate students
Admin
Postgraduate
Education
Student
Law/Politics
Other
Teaching positions
Medicine/
Science
Finance/Economics/
Corporate
200 donations
Warren for
President, Inc.
Pete for America, Inc.
Marianne Williamson
for President
Kamala Harris
for the People
Julian for the Future
Inslee for America
Gillibrand 2020
Friends of
John Delaney
Friends of
Andrew Yang
Donald J. Trump for
President, Inc.
De Blasio 2020
Cory 2020
Bullock for President
Biden for President
Beto for America
Bernie 2020
Bennet for America
Amy for America
Other includes donor titles film projectionist,
fundraiser, journalist, librarian, programmer,
psychiatrist, public health, reading specialist,
tech manager, writer.
Emmaline Bennett, CC ’20, an organizing committee member of the Columbia-Barnard Young Democratic Socialists for America, isn’t surprised that Sanders received the most number of donations.
“One of the big things about Sanders’ campaign has been appealing to individual donors who are just ordinary working-class people, who might not be able to write a $100 check, or max out their individual donations,” said Bennett. “But they can give $20 or $5—like I’ve given a bunch of small donations to the Sanders campaign because that’s how much I’ve been able to give.”
Democrat
Total contribution of $105,225 to Democratic
candidates from Columbia affiliates.
Widths of lines represent
amounts contributed
$12,232
$9,091
$14,615
$20,879
$15,935
$9,585
Buttigieg
Harris
Biden
Warren
Trump
Booker
Sanders
Republican
$6,549
Biden
Trump
Buttigieg
Harris
Warren
Booker
Sanders
Democrat
Total contribution of $105,225 to Democratic
candidates from Columbia affiliates.
Widths of lines represent
amounts contributed
$12,232
$9,091
$14,615
$20,879
$15,935
$9,585
Warren
Biden
Trump
Booker
Sanders
Buttigieg
Harris
Republican
$6,549
Warren
Biden
Trump
Booker
Sanders
Buttigieg
Harris
Democrat
Total contribution of $105,225
to Democratic candidates
from Columbia affiliates.
Widths of lines represent
amounts contributed
$12,232
$9,091
$14,615
$20,879
$15,935
$9,585
Buttigieg
Biden
Booker
Harris
Warren
Trump
Sanders
Republican
$6,549
Trump
Green also highlighted how Sanders is known as a “brand name associated with left-leaning politics,” an attribute which would make him an attractive candidate to Columbians.
Sanders’ campaign primarily focuses on progressive issues such as tuition-free college, Medicare for all, campaign finance reform, and a $15 minimum wage. But like Booker, Sanders doesn’t have any direct affiliations with Columbia—he graduated from the University of Chicago and served as a U.S. representative for 16 years before being elected to the U.S. Senate.
Columbia affiliate donations to all democratic candidates
First debate
June 26–27, 2019
Second debate
July 30–31, 2019
Third debate
September 12, 2019
15 donations
10
5
0
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Jun
Bernie Sanders
Joe Biden
15 donations
15 donations
10
10
5
5
0
0
Jun
Jun
Mar
Apr
May
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Cory Booker
Kamala Harris
15 donations
15 donations
10
10
5
5
0
0
Jun
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Jun
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Pete Buttigieg
Elizabeth Warren
15 donations
15 donations
10
10
5
5
0
0
Jun
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Jun
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Note: October marker represents the end of FEC-reported data (September 30).
Columbia affiliate donations to
all democratic candidates
First debate
June 26–27, 2019
Second debate
July 30–31, 2019
Third debate
September 12, 2019
15 donations
10
5
0
Jun
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Bernie Sanders
Joe Biden
15
15
10
10
5
5
0
0
Aug
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Sept
Oct
Jun
Jun
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Mar
Apr
Oct
Cory Booker
Kamala Harris
15
15
10
10
5
5
0
0
Jun
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Jun
Elizabeth Warren
Pete Butteggieg
15
15
10
10
5
5
0
0
Jun
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Oct
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Jun
Note: October marker represents the end of FEC-reported data (September 30).
Columbia affiliate donations to
all democratic candidates
Third debate
First debate
Second debate
15 donations
10
5
0
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Bernie Sanders
15
10
5
0
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Joe Biden
15
10
5
0
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Jun
Cory Booker
15
10
5
0
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Jun
Kamala Harris
15
10
5
0
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Jun
Pete Butteggieg
15
10
5
0
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Elizabeth Warren
15
10
5
0
Mar
Apr
May
Jul
Aug
Sept
Oct
Jun
Note: October marker represents the end
of FEC-reported data (September 30).
Though Booker and Sanders currently hold forefront positions in the eyes of Columbia affiliates, Green notes that donation patterns and results are subject to change in the near future.
“I would say that the thing to be on the watch for is what happens after Iowa and New Hampshire. Some of these candidates will get a bounce, and some will be booted out of contention. And the question is what happens to fundraising patterns after that,” said Green.
