COVID-19, college academic performance, and the flexible grading policy: A longitudinal analysis

Núria Rodriguez-Planas

Journal of Public Economics, 2022, vol. 207, issue C

Abstract: I use an unbalanced panel of over 11,000 academic records spanning from Spring 2017 to Spring 2020 to identify the difference in effects of the COVID-19 pandemic across lower- and higher-income students’ academic performance. Using difference-in-differences models and event study analyses with individual fixed effects, I find a differential effect by students’ pre-COVID-19 academic performance. Lower-income students in the bottom quartile of the Fall 2019 cumulative GPA distribution outperformed their higher-income peers with a 9% higher Spring 2020 GPA. This differential is fully explained by students’ use of the flexible grading policy with lower-income ones being 35% more likely to exercise the pass/fail option than their counterparts. While no such GPA advantage is observed among top-performing lower-income students, in the absence of the flexible grading policy these students would have seen their GPA decrease by 5% relative to their counterfactual pre-pandemic mean. I find suggestive evidence that this lower performance may be driven by lower-income top-performing students experiencing greater challenges with online learning. These students also reported a higher use of incompletes than their higher-income peers and being more concerned about maintaining (merit-based) financial aid.

Keywords: COVID-19; Income and performance inequalities; Unbalanced panel of academic records; Transcript and survey data; Difference-in-differences models; And event analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I22 I23 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:207:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722000081

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104606

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