How Has COVID Affected College Students?

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.^[6] All areas of everyday life were disrupted, and higher education was no exception. Schools shut down for long stretches of time, classes moved to online learning, and many institutions suffered sharp declines in enrollment numbers.

Three years later, some enrollment statistics show that higher education is recovering. However, COVID-19 continues to have lasting effects on other areas like students’ mental health.

In this report, we cover the impact of COVID-19 on enrollment, online learning, academic performance, job and internship opportunities, and mental health through data and analysis.

Mental health challenges, stress, and isolation rose among college students in the years following the pandemic. Survey data shows how the pandemic impacted students’ personal and academic lives.

For students, having to learn from home also meant having restricted access to on-campus opportunities. This included internship opportunities, on-campus jobs, and study-abroad opportunities.^{Note Reference [7]} Note that this study only covers college students from universities in New York and New Jersey, epicenters of the pandemic in the U.S. in spring 2020.

According to College Crisis Initiative data cited by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which tracked campus closures across the nation, over 1,300 colleges and universities canceled in-person classes or moved to online learning only by spring 2020.^{Note Reference [1]}

By fall 2020, almost 3 in 4 college students (74%) took at least one class online.^[9]

While the number of students taking online classes was already on the rise prior to the pandemic, the figure skyrocketed to 74% in 2020, totaling 5.4 million college students.^{Note Reference [9]}

While students can save on housing and living expenses by learning online, the total cost of online education is not necessarily cheaper than in-person learning. A 2016 WCET survey of nearly 200 colleges found that 54% of colleges charged more for remote learning than in-person classes.^[11]

In a 2022 survey conducted by BestColleges, 25% of all students, which included remote learners, online program graduates, and prospective online students, said balancing education with work, family, and household obligations was their biggest concern about the remote/online learning experience.

In contrast, 10% of all students claimed their biggest concern to be the perception of online education by employers. Another 16% deemed quality of instruction and academic support to be the biggest concern about the remote/online learning experience.

Students were not the only ones to find the transition difficult. Out of the 126 instructors surveyed, 33% said that the biggest challenge to moving online was developing a learning community at a distance.^[12] They reported the second biggest challenge was adapting teaching styles from on campus to online (14%), and the third was maintaining and updating online course materials (10%).

We also see increases in the number of remote learners among graduate degree programs, including master’s, doctorate, and professional programs (e.g., law, medicine, dentistry).

The COVID-19 pandemic amplified and quickened certain pre-existing trends in higher education. Enrollment numbers, for example, had already been steadily declining for the past few decades prior to the pandemic.

Despite more than 300 schools extending their admission deadlines as well as waiving SAT/ACT requirements in hopes of retaining numbers, undergraduate enrollment dropped considerably.^{Note Reference [1]}

Fall 2022 showed signs of recovery, however:

Graduate enrollment experienced a 1.2% decrease (39,000 students) in fall 2022.^{Note Reference [3]}

Not all schools experienced the same drops in enrollment. Ivy League schools actually experienced a jump in applications, especially early admission and early decision, after suspending their SAT/ACT testing requirements.^{Note Reference [1]}

Drops in enrollment broken down by major also reveals which fields of study were hit hardest during COVID-19. The table below tracks the growth and decline of some of the most popular majors.

When broken down by gender, men’s enrollment initially fell faster than women’s during the start of the pandemic. From fall 2021 onward, however, women’s enrollment declined more than men’s. (The National Student Clearinghouse does not report enrollment rates for trans or nonbinary students.)

When separated by institution type, the percentage gap was sometimes much bigger.

An increasing number of higher education institutions, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, no longer require standardized test scores as part of their admissions processes. This trend had already started, but the pandemic may have accelerated it.

Interestingly enough, prospective graduate student test-takers achieved all-time high test scores in 2022. This was true for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), on which the average score was 501.5, the highest since a new version of the MCAT was released in 2015.

Both GMAT and GRE test-takers achieved their highest scores in 2021, which is the most recent test year data available for both exams.