COVID-19: Increase in College Dropouts

   TIME

Education・COVID-19

COVID-19: Increase in College Dropouts

BY Viana Dang  November 3, 2020 11:30 AM PST

 In the current state of this era, the status quo has become a central point of becoming successful. Typically, one must undergo years of education to achieve a standard career. As time passes and civilization becomes modernized, the establishment of education becomes a crucial part of becoming successful in the real world. Education has become the key to moving towards the future; without it, one has a high chance of failure. When entering into the new world after primary school, most people consider college as a form of extra schooling after formal schooling. To receive a range of jobs, the college has become a mandatory requirement. The financial status of college-bound schools is already at a high but classes and courses require an extra amount of dedication. Students often don't attend their first choice or attend college at all because of the amount it cost to pay tuition, books, and other expenses such as housing and essentials. However, Coronavirus has impacted families all over the world, it has led to an increase in students dropping out of college, especially those of low-income families. 

From the beginning of this pandemic in March 2020, the entire world was at its wit's end, those who are affected had to deal with many problems leading to the future. Unemployment rates started to increase as families desperately tried to find ways to provide for their families, the government tried to help with unemployment benefits, however, this was not enough for families. Families struggled with providing for their entire family without jobs, others tried their best to stock up as much as possible in fear that food and other household items would soon run out. Most people rushed to the bank afraid that their money will disappear similar to another historical event named the Great Depression. 

Employment chart across the world’s economies. BBC News

According to news site BBC, “in the United States, the proportion of people out of work has hit 10.4%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), signaling an end to a decade of expansion for one of the world's largest economies.” Economic failure is increasing in the modern day because of the high demand of businesses shutting down and losing their financial income. Due to the nation's lockdown, many businesses were required to shut down for months, which caused some businesses to shut down completely because of the bankruptcy they faced from shutting down for a few months. Unemployment rapidly shot up the longer the nation was in lockdown. This is crucial because many families that have lost jobs are struggling to survive through this pandemic. Yes, covid has affected so many lives across the world, but imagine families that were already struggling financially before the pandemic even occurred. This does not give them time to worry about anything else besides getting through each day. Many low-income college students do not have time to focus in school, especially because it is considered an optional choice. They are busy with helping other families or working to provide for their families. They do not see school as a first property and simply put it off or drop it completely. 

According to a National College Attainment Network analysis of Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) data, schools are noticing a concerning trend: Low-income students are the most likely to drop out or not enroll at all, raising fears that they might never get a college degree. Some 100,000 fewer high school seniors completed financial aid applications to attend college this year. Even with FAFSA, students are discouraged from applying to school. The image below shows the amounts of seniors that completed FAFSA, but as soon as Coronavirus hit in March 2020, the decrease of students' application started to decline down and hit a drop of -4.2%, which is 98,924 students in total. This goes to prove the impact of covid to students that were planning to go to college and how they feared that FAFSA is not enough to help them so they entirely dropped out. 

FAFSA application rate decreasing rapidly since COVID started.  National College Attainment Network

Financially, everyone was negatively hurt. On the other hand, many were also mentally drained because of the virus. For months, the country was on lockdown not letting anyone leave their homes with the exception of essential needs. Many stayed home and watched their life fly by without any social interaction or motivation. People were jobless and social distancing, which can equal social isolation. And people are out dying which made it hard for others to stay positive and believe that they will get through this hard time. All of these big numbers are going to have an outsized impact on our mental health collectively. According to the Washington Post, the chart presents a survey that was given out asking how Coronavirus negatively impacted their lives.

The negative impact on different groups across the nation. The Washington Post

This displays a wide range of people of different races, genders, and age groups across the nation feel that this pandemic affected them negatively one way or another. Even if it's a minor impact, it does cause harm to their mental health. The fear and anxiety about the virus and what could happen can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children. Public health actions, such as social distancing, can make people feel isolated and lonely and can increase stress and anxiety. Schools in minority or low-income neighborhoods face more students with mental health issues. According to The Atlantic, “Students who live in poverty experience a greater degree of adverse experiences, which contributes to mental illness, says Darcy Gruttadaro, director of NAMI’s child and adolescent action center. They may deal with housing instability, violence, and food insecurity, for example, which could result in long-term (mental) health consequences.” This demonstrates how students of financially unstable homes suffer through enough mentally at home. If college is put on top of the mental issues at home, it may be too much for students to handle, making them completely lose interest in their education in general. 

COVID-19 has impacted families financially, emotionally, and now academically. It has been two months of school and students are feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Students attending school such as high school, middle school, and even elementary schools already are having trouble having time to focus on the lesson through the computer and or feel like they are not obligated to put effort into their schoolwork. They get easily distracted or bored and choose not to participate in school. They care more about getting the grade than actually understand the concept in front of them. As a current senior, I feel as if I just need to get by this last year but not fully willing to understand everything in front of me but just willing to get it “done.” This creates a lazy mentality for students as they are not being as motivated if they were taking personal classes. Time management is another issue students suffer from. Individuals who are prone to procrastination will have an especially difficult time adapting to the structure of the online school. Hours of self-directed work are necessary to get through all of the material, including course lectures, video supplements, assignments, assigned textbook reading, and discussions. Sometimes obtaining your online degree, especially an online master's degree, requires a greater amount of work. There are also other factors such as social interaction with other peers. Although most online courses do have a discussion area where students are required to talk about through breakout rooms or class discussion. But most students decide not to participate and most of the learning is on their own. This also creates a limited interaction with teachers. Due to the sudden impact of remote schooling, teachers are becoming more scarce in terms of interaction.  The only choice is to lecture through zoom and pre-recorded videos or discussion time in class, where students barely participate. The majority of the interaction between teachers and students come from class discussions and feedback on assignments. Some students who thrive in one-on-one interaction with their professors may have trouble with this format of schooling.

With the given state of our world issues, why would an average person go through the process of schooling at this time and period? Why put so much effort when there are more students lacking attention than ever? These are questions that many students ask themselves. Many try to convince themselves that they should take a break and that they will pick up school once the pandemic is over. Others completely dropped out knowing that they could not handle it. There are two trends moving at the same time, students who were attending higher-priced four-year colleges have switched to community college for better pricing and remote classes. The Washington Post said students who spoke with site virtual teaching is the key reason they are dropping out. Students said that they do not have spacious and quiet places to study due to their families moving back home. The Washington Post interviewed Paige McConnell and asked why she decided to leave school. She replied that she could not make online classes work. She doesn’t have WiFi at her rural home in Crossville, Tenn. The local library closed down. She spent hours in a McDonald’s parking lot using the fast-food chain’s Internet, but she kept getting kicked off her college’s virtual classes because the network wasn’t “safe.” Two weeks after starting at Roane State Community College, she gave up. “‘At my high school graduation, I told all my family I would go to community college. I was trying to better my future,’ McConnell said. ‘But the online classes really threw me for a loop. I knew I couldn’t do it.’” This is a critical example of a college student dropping out of college due to circumstances out of her control. She genuinely puts a lot of effort in trying to make it work for her situation, yet in the end, it is too difficult for her to handle. Many students across the nation could be in similar situations such as McConnell or even worse. This is unfair to them because they are trying their best to keep up with all the changes occurring in her life and now school settings and in the end, those who are less fortunate have to deal with the negative outcome. 

The pandemic has caused many families to suffer on a different scale due to their class and their accessibility to these resources such as money, food, living environment, and family obligations. This creates an unfair hierarchy in our society that those of a lower class are suffering because they are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Those towards the top may not see a huge effect on them from this virus and just see it as a shift to a different lifestyle whole those of low-income families are fighting such to keep it through the week. From the chapter, There’s No Justice in History, from the novel Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. The novel clarifies the differences between the classes in society. “They divided people into make-believe groups, arranged in a hierarchy. The upper levels enjoyed privileges and power, while the lower ones suffered from discrimination and oppression. Hammurabi’s Code, for example, established a pecking order of superiors, commoners, and slaves. Superiors got all the good things in life. Commoners got what was left.” This shows the division of people in the world by their power, which comes from money. It is known that the more money you have, the more opportunities you have, and the more power you have. But if you step back, a person of the low class can work full time his entire life just to provide a roof under their family's head, while a person born in wealth never has to lift a figure to make millions in their bank accounts. Do you see the injustice in the situation? But if you incorporate this with school, many students deserve the fairness of equal schooling. That is why they are able to attend school for free until they are 18. Many are even helped by the district with programs such as free and reduced lunches. This excludes college, which is now an essential requirement for many jobs. And yes, there are many programs that help such as FAFSA and scholarships. But many are still at a disadvantage with these programs and can not fully commit to an “optional” school.

Students also lack interest in the idea of schooling online because it may not be the same experience as in-person or they believe that they can come back to school when everything gets better. Students believe that they won't do well in online school settings because it is hard to completely focus through a computer, so imagine learning an entire course. In the short passage by Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid, the piece explains the internet taking over our mental habits and that our brains adapt to our surroundings, which is technology taking over humans. He talks about how his attention span is easily distracted now that he knows there is the internet and he can simply find a convenient way to relay the information This is very real to me as I notice that I can not focus on simply reading long article or book without getting distracted or trying to find a more convenient way to relate the information. It is hard for me to concentrate because I either lose interest or feel like the passage in front of me is too long. I think this relates back to students my age and younger because the internet has tremendously involved in a more advanced and easy way to relay information. Since Google has been accessible and it takes only one click to find information, students heavily rely on it. Because of Google, I find myself lazier in learning when there are things like websites that summarize information, and videos I can watch. College students, or soon to be college students find themselves in this position because of how they adapted to the internet. A survey poll was taken by the Washington Post, students feel the need not to attend classes this fall because of the change to online remoting learning, students. This survey displays that students may not be mentally stable to attend college this year due to new Covid conditions.

A survey poll on why students decided not to take classes this fall.  The Washington Post

However, money and the students' learning environment are not one of the only reasons why students have decided to drop out of college or decided to “take a break.” The chart above demonstrates the reasons why students did not want to take classes this fall. 55% percent has to deal with the switch to online classes caused by Covid or uncertainty. Coming in close with 45%, is students worrying about catching Coronavirus. This shows that even if students are not comfortable in their living environment, most of them are afraid to go back to in-person classes (if it is an option). The following answers are related to the financial aspect or helping the family during this difficult time such as taking care of relatives. All of these answers relate back to Covid one way or another making the pandemic to be the overall cause of college dropouts or students not applying to college at all.   This is important because it shows how much Covid is affecting students and their education that also affects their futures. They are physically being limited in their education by a pandemic, which is unfair to them. Although education is incredibly important to them, covid made other factors, which can be as simple as trying to survive through this pandemic, have a higher priority. Society fails to point out what would happen if you are not financially ready for college or even have physical and mental barriers that limit you from completing high school. Society has integrated college into the essence of success and created a sense of normality that college is a requirement of life.

Annotated Bibliography 

Carr, Nicholas C. Is Google Making Us Stupid? The Atlantic, 2008. 

Carr talks about the impact of Google and taking over our mental habits and that our brains adapt to our surroundings, which is technology taking over humans. Not only do humans rely on technology in the education aspect, impacted everyday life such as entertainment and communication.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind. Vintage, 2019.

This passage focuses on hierarchies and the direct representations of the neurologic or sociologic facets of humanity through society’s hierarchies. 

Heather Long, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel. “The Latest Crisis: Low-Income Students Are Dropping out of College This Fall in Alarming Numbers.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 18 Sept. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/16/college-enrollment-down/.

The online article talked about the rate of college dropout students increasing due to many factors caused by Coronavirus. This passage dives into the financial side of the low-income families and what they have to endure in order to compensate for the new remote online learning and how it is too much for students to handle so they drop out completely.  

Leah Askarinam, National Journal. “Schools in Poor Areas Have More Students with Mental Health Needs.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 13 Jan. 2016, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/schools-in-poor-areas-have-more-students-with-mental-health-needs/458808/.

This source explains the negative difficulties of mental health that many faced due to the coronavirus. The online source explains low-come families facing many issues making them feel more isolated and is heavily affecting their mental health

Lora Jones, Daniele Palumbo & David Brown. “Coronavirus: A Visual Guide to the Economic Impact.” BBC News, BBC, 29 June 2020, www.bbc.com/news/business-51706225.

This news source talks about unemployment levels increasing throughout the world and compares countries on how they keep up with the employment levels increasing. The especially talks about America's lockdown and how that spike up the employment rate up to 14%

Tableau Public, public.tableau.com/profile/bill.debaun.national.college.access.network. 

This source is related to FAFSA, specifically the decrease of application starting in March 2020.