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

Esteban Aucejo, Jacob French, Maria Paola Ugalde Araya and Basit Zafar

Journal of Public Economics, 2020, vol. 191, issue C

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; Higher education; Expectations; Survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (130)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272720301353
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The Impact of COVID-19 on Student Experiences and Expectations: Evidence from a Survey (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:191:y:2020:i:c:s0047272720301353

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104271

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().