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Key points
- A new report finds that youth who face adverse life events tend to prefer short-term certificate programs with immediate but limited upsides.
- Youth who experience more adverse life events may forego college because they believe that they could never finish without a major interruption.
- Colleges should consider how to support students through adverse life events and ease their transition back after taking a break.
Everyone in higher education knows a hard-working student who “vanished” due to unforeseen circumstances. Maybe their parent got laid off, or their sibling got sick, or they got pregnant, and college could no longer be their highest priority. We often treat such events as unpredictable. But what happens when a student does, in fact, predict that something like this will happen to them?
A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) explored how life-disrupting “shocks,” such as violence, incarceration, homelessness, and death, impact students’ educational choices. The researchers found that not only do college students who experience shocks shift to short-term programs that offer faster economic benefits with much lower ceilings but also that youth who expect shocks often choose such programs in the first place. And as I’ve witnessed in my work with Persistence Plus, there’s been a dramatic increase in shocks since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shocks cause students to change plans to help the family.
The NBER report relies on 150 interviews with Black youth and young adults (ages 15-24) living in public housing in Baltimore who shared stories of how shocks altered, delayed, or perhaps ended their educational plans. One common shock was a tragedy befalling a loved one, thus requiring the student to work more and/or provide care. In one such story, Chanel’s mom couldn’t work due to knee surgery, so Chanel quit a bachelor’s program in psychology to seek a short-term medical certificate at a for-profit college. Vicky also left community college to earn a medical certificate after she became a full-time caretaker for her boyfriend following a violent altercation. Sierra graduated high school just as her mom was laid off and her sister became pregnant, leading her to delay school to work in the service industry.
At Persistence Plus, I often hear from students about their responsibility to care for the family. Students have shared hundreds of stories of how they must balance college with caretaking and work:
- “Being a single mother of four and going to school has been a hard balance, but I am determined to give them the best life I can.”
- “I’m really struggling with keeping a work/study balance. My job is very draining, and I work long hours, but it is necessary for me to pay for the bills and rent at home.”
- “I have to go back to work full time in January. I live with parents, and one got laid off.”
Changing plans in response to a death
Perhaps no event is as shocking as death, which often leads to increased familial responsibilities. Isaac, one of the NBER interviewees, stopped just short of his associate’s degree to take care of his nephew after his sister died. The emotional trauma of death can also just be too much to bear. Tiara, a community college student who had to arrange a funeral for her cousin, withdrew because college is not structured to accommodate grief.
Again, so many students have shared tragic stories via Persistence Plus about trying to focus on college while grieving loved ones, especially since COVID-19 began ravaging their families and communities:
- “I’ve had a few deaths in the family. I have not been able to focus on the two classes I have to do on my own.”
- “I had a death in the family that was very hard and distracting, but I’m learning to refocus and manage my time better. I’ve missed some assignments in my math [class], and I’m recovering now.”
- “I had another death in my immediate family for a total of three this semester. I am having a hard time dealing with all of it.”
Designing colleges that anticipate shocks
It should come as no surprise that shocks often derail a student’s education, but sometimes just the anticipation of shocks is sufficient to alter plans. Negative life experiences erode students’ confidence that they can finish college in a reasonable amount of time—if ever—making a short-term certificate the safer bet. In some cases, youth aren’t even sure whether they’ll live long enough to see the benefits of a degree: Several NBER interviewees refused to speculate about what their lives would be like in 5 years because they simply weren’t sure they’d still be around.
Most students, however, will live to old age, and earning a college degree would have a major impact on their lives and the generations to come. Given that, how do we design college to both allay students’ concerns about shocks and support their journey when those shocks occur?
- Flexibility. As pointed out in the NBER report, many students choose for-profit colleges because they tap the need for flexible, short-term programs. What elements of these models can be built into a more traditional college program? Some colleges offer micro-credentials or badges students earn along the way, whereas others have turned to mini-mesters, sometimes as short as a month, so that students earn credits quickly while minimizing the potential damage of a late-semester shock. However, effective employer partnerships that guarantee that these sub-degree credentials are valued in the marketplace are essential and too often overlooked.
- Better on-ramps. Reenrolling in college is already an act of resilience, and we should make these students’ returns as easy as possible. Debt and grade forgiveness can help students “write off” a bad semester and make a fresh start. Colleges could design a “welcome back” orientation to reintroduce students to academic life and provide additional transition support. Some colleges employ case managers to help students navigate both academic and life challenges, knowing that students who withdrew once (even from another college) may be likely to do so again. Targeting resources to this population can help ensure that both students and colleges don’t lose their investments in each other when the next shock arrives.
- Increased support. Wraparound services can also help keep students enrolled through shocks. More colleges now offer emergency aid and food pantries to help students and their families get through tough times. Expanded campus-based childcare is necessary for student parents and caretakers, while greater access to mental health services is needed for students coping with shocks. The more support a college provides, the more likely students are to work through a shock, as well as believe they can make it in college even when a shock seems inevitable.
