The impact of COVID-19 on student experiences and expectations: Evidence from a survey

Abstract

In order to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education, we surveyed approximately 1500 students at one of the largest public institutions in the United States using an instrument designed to recover the causal impact of the pandemic on students' current and expected outcomes. Results show large negative effects across many dimensions. Due to COVID-19: 13% of students have delayed graduation, 40% have lost a job, internship, or job offer, and 29% expect to earn less at age 35. Moreover, these effects have been highly heterogeneous. One quarter of students increased their study time by more than 4 hours per week due to COVID-19, while another quarter decreased their study time by more than 5 hours per week. This heterogeneity often followed existing socioeconomic divides. Lower-income students are 55% more likely than their higher-income peers to have delayed graduation due to COVID-19. Finally, we show that the economic and health related shocks induced by COVID-19 vary systematically by socioeconomic factors and constitute key mediators in explaining the large (and heterogeneous) effects of the pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Expectations; Higher education; Survey.

Fig. 1

Treatment effects by demographic group. (a) Delay Graduation due to COVID (0/1) (b) Semester GPA (Δ 0–4) (c) Change major due to COVID (0/1) (d) Likelihood take online classes (Δ 0–1) (e) Probability job before graduate (Δ 0–1) (f) Expected earnings at age 35 (Pct. Δ) Notes: bars denote 90% confidence interval.

Fig. A1

Expected and previous academic performance. Notes: Figure plots mean expected GPA with COVID-19 against students' cumulative GPA up to the spring 2020 semester. The 45 degree line is also plotted for reference.

Fig. A2

More treatment effects by demographic group. (a) Withdrew from Class due to COVID (0/1); (b) Social Events per Week (Δ 0–14); (c) Move in With Family due to COVID (0/1); (d) Weekly Study Hours (Δ 0–40); (e) Reservation Wage (Pct. Δ) Notes: Bars denote 90% confidence interval.

Fig. A3

Cohort trends. Notes: Figure plots average COVID-19 effects for a series of outcomes. The x-axis variable in each panel is expected academic year of graduation (after COVID), with summer graduation dates included in the previous academic year. Bars denote 90% confidence interval.

Fig. A4

Distribution of individual effects. Notes: Data winsorized below 5% and above 95%. Controls include cohort fixed effects, major fixed effects, and the economic/health proxies in Table 3. Conditional distribution adjusted to preserve unconditional mean. Within each plot: middle line represents median, edges of box represent interquatile range (IQR), edge of whisker represents the adjacent values or the 25th(75th) percentile plus(minus) 1.5 times the IQR. Outlier observations past adjacent values plotted as individual points.