Pandemic interrupts post-high school plans for some, disproportionately for low income students

New results from a nationally representative poll of high-achieving 2020 high school graduates finds that as of August, most students were continuing to pursue their post-high school plans of attending college. Almost 9-in-10 students applied to at least one college, and 86 percent were accepted to at least one (results collected before actual college attendance). However, the results diverged when researchers stratified the sample by ever having received free and reduced-price lunch: 47 percent who had subsidized meals had changed their plans due to COVID, compared with 28 percent who never had. Potential changes include attending a school closer to home, attending a two-year school instead of a four-year, and for 9 percent of low-income respondents, deciding to forgo college attendance altogether (compared with 5 percent of higher income students). The article suggests that the effects of these decisions are yet unknown, but could have similar long-term earnings impacts to those documented among millennials who came of age during the Great Recession. #covid-19 #education