Higher education and employment: bleak prospects in COVID-19

With immense uncertainty, the COVID-19 crisis has posed unprecedented challenge to the potential aspirants of higher learning and prospective job seekers. The consequences of COVID-19 on higher education and employment sector have been prodigious. With 800 respondents from West Bengal, the study attempts to reflect an overview of opportunities coupled with threats involved in higher studies that reckons employment trends now and beyond pandemic period. The study employs ordered logistic regression, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Wilcoxon Sign test, effect size test and many more. The study infers that COVID induced lockdown has significantly affected scope of higher education and employment opportunities for prospective potential job seekers. The future career of these potential students and prospective job seekers seems to be at stake due to COVID-19 induced delay in the prevailing system. The outcomes yielded by this study may precipitate in formulation of development policies for sustainable growth and betterment of future generation.