JUDY WOODRUFF: Let's turn now to a different impact of COVID on higher education.
Typically, during a recession, community college enrollment goes up,
as unemployed workers start looking for new skills. But that is not happening now.
It could mean trouble for the economy going forward, particularly for low-income students.
Hari Sreenivasan has our story. It's part of our ongoing series Rethinking College.
ANDREW CROWLEY, College Student:
Everybody goes through those days where they just feel like, well, maybe I should just stop,
and maybe I should just give up, or maybe I should just say, well, it's not even worth it.
HARI SREENIVASAN: It's been one of those days for Andrew Crowley, one of those years.
He's been trying to focus on his studies at Columbus State Community College, but his mom died
of cancer recently. He hoped to make more time for schoolwork by reducing his hours at Walmart.
ANDREW CROWLEY: I tried to explain to them, well, I need to cut back some of my time
so I can be able to study. And they didn't really, like, kind of agree with me on that.
HARI SREENIVASAN: So, he says, they let him go.
ANDREW CROWLEY: Which kind of led me to be homeless.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Crowley doesn't want you to feel sorry for him. He stuck it
out. He even says he maintained A's and B's while living in a shelter during a pandemic.
But he came close to being part of a troubling statistic this fall. Community colleges have seen
enrollment plummet 10.1 percent compared to last year, nearly 21 percent among freshmen and almost
a 30 percent drop for freshmen who are either Black, Hispanic or Native American in each group.
The total loss at public two-year schools? More than 540,000 fewer students compared to last fall,
put another way, more than the population of Atlanta.
DESIREE POLK-BLAND, Vice President for Student Affairs, Columbus State Community College: Our
students have life, right?
HARI SREENIVASAN: Desiree Polk-Bland, Columbus state's vice president for student affairs,
says some of her colleagues took it as a red flag when Crowley began to
participate less in his classes. They persuaded him to share his troubles.
Then they got him a job at this campus-based food pantry and found him permanent housing.
DESIREE POLK-BLAND: All of these factors interfere with being a successful student.
Anything that takes your attention away from going to class, studying, spending time
with the material ends up being a factor that impact your ability to continue as a student.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Fifty-six percent of Black and Hispanic students have reported that COVID-19
is very likely or likely to force them out of school, compared to 44 percent of whites.
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which tracks college enrollment,
says the drop among freshman students in particular this fall was unprecedented.
Doug Shapiro is the executive research director.
DOUG SHAPIRO, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center: These
are truly staggering drops just in terms of the quantities, the size of the declines.
College enrollments generally have been slowly shrinking every year
pretty much since the end of the Great Recession,
but it's never been more than 1 or 2 percentage points. We have never seen anything like this.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Only 13 percent of students who drop
out return to college, according to the group.
DOUG SHAPIRO: These are the most -- often the most vulnerable and disadvantaged students, who will
have real difficulties ever getting back on track educationally.
HARI SREENIVASAN: There are the logistical challenges, like what Liliana Palafox faces,
homeschooling and caring for her 6-year-old daughter,
without so much as a quiet space to study, that is, when the Internet connection actually works.
LILIANA PALAFOX, College Student: The Internet dropping, not connecting right away,
having to move all around the house to be able to get signal,
and then also, like, my daughter or my husband sometimes using the hot spot. So, we share it.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Then there are the deeper inequalities the pandemic has laid bare.
TYLER LOPEZ, College Student: My father passed away due to COVID-19 while he was in the
HARI SREENIVASAN: Tyler Lopez's father was already in the hospital with multiple
sclerosis when the pandemic struck. He died of COVID-19 in the spring.
Lopez tried to channel his grief into schoolwork.
He's a sophomore studying jazz drumming at New Jersey City University.
TYLER LOPEZ: Multiple times, I thought about quitting. I thought about just, forget it all.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Music kept him moving forward.
TYLER LOPEZ: The drums, that's what prevented it, my love for music. It is hard, but the love
outweighs the stress.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Schools are doing what they can to keep students enrolled.
Lopez's school, New Jersey City University, is a campus where the
majority of students are minorities and many are from the lowest income bracket.
The school provided loaner laptops and Wi-Fi hot spots for homebound studies,
in person classes for visual or high-touch programs, open dorms and libraries for
those who need them, and socially distanced sports teams operating on a limited basis.
But in a year like this, it hasn't always been enough, says Jodi Bailey,
the school's associate vice president of student affairs. Some students have simply disappeared.
JODI BAILEY, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs, New Jersey City University: I worry
about them because of rent, and I worry about them because of food.
And I worry about them because of the medical issues that their families have.
We know that low-income and minority families in general don't seek out
medical assistance as quickly as they should, for a variety of reasons.
And COVID could tear their families apart. I worry for them.
MELANIE ALVAREZ, College Student: If my friends are doing it,
then we should all take a break together.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Melanie Alvarez, a senior at California State University at Northridge,
has felt nearly all of the pressure points and one more. She was the first to graduate
high school in her family, the first to go to college. All eyes have been on her.
MELANIE ALVAREZ: The pandemic happened. Like,
I think my brother and my sister were all looking to me, like, OK,
what is she going to do? Is she going to drop out? Is she going to stay in college?
And it was hard to tell my brother, like,
you have to push through, because I also felt at one point that I didn't want to continue anymore.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Alvarez says close friends and study partners have taken
a break in recent months, but she decided to continue. The stakes seemed too high.
MELANIE ALVAREZ: My parents have always told me, like, there's nothing that we can inherit to you,
other than the education. Other than motivation, there's nothing that we can give to you.
So, my parents' motivation to go to school is always number one, and I'm always looking out
for my younger siblings. So, they are definitely following in my footsteps.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Her brother recently enrolled in community college. So,
for now, Alvarez says, she will keep moving.
The question is, how many others will get stopped in their tracks?
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Hari Sreenivasan.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Seventy-five percent of traditional college-age students report
poor mental health tied to the pandemic.
We will examine the impact in our Rethinking College series next Tuesday.