Although it has been more than two years since Covid emerged, there are still certain groups of people and places feeling the repercussions of the pandemic. Right now, there are thousands of recent high school grads who are getting ready to go to college. This specific age group spent more than half of their high school careers dealing with the upheaval of the pandemic from remote learning. Douglas Harris, professor and department of economics chair at Tulane University, joined Cheddar News to discuss.

Cheddar's News Wrap

 Post-Pandemic Challenges Among High School Grads

Welcome back to cheddar news wrap, although it has been more than two years since Covid emerged, there are still certain groups of people and places feeling the repercussions of the pandemic right now, there are thousands of recent high school grads who are getting ready to go to college. The specific age groups spent more than half of their high school careers dealing with the upheaval of the pandemic from remote learnings to to teacher shortages. Joining me. Now to discuss is Douglas Harris professor and chair of the department of Economics at Tulane University Professor, welcome to the show. The pandemic cost many high schoolers to disengage at a time when they would typically be prepping for college or a career. So are they prepared? How much did they miss academically because of the pandemic? Well, I missed quite a bit. We see this in study after study has shown the loss in terms of test scores. Uh and so that's one part of the academic story, the knowledge and skills, the ability to, to write and the amount of math that they learned all of that was hampered by the pandemic but also created other issues, You know, the transition to college also comes with psychological challenges, social challenges. Uh you know, it's hard moving out of your house, you're, you're moving away from from family and friends. And so that even before Covid that transition was somewhat difficult and during the pandemic, people got more used to just being at home, being on social media, not being directly connected in person so much to their friends and now they're being put into that college environment that was already a challenge to begin with and they're just not is ready, not as experienced with that psychologically to that there's been a lot more mental health issues and that gets exacerbated to when you're away from your home environment. So I think all of those dimensions academically, socially, psychologically, it creates a real challenge. It's already challenging to transition to college as you well know. What do you think the biggest challenges will be for this upcoming freshman class? I think it's all the above. I don't think it's any 11 thing. Uh they they're gonna have to have to adapt. They've always they've always had to adapt. And I don't, I really don't think it's any one thing. I think it's just gonna be a big challenge. We already see it in the declining enrollments. We're probably gonna see increase and drop out rates just based on past experience about what we know when students come in, who are not as academically prepared and not is ready socially and psychologically to come into that new environment that that they're gonna have a harder time persisting engaging, sticking with it through the, you know, the ups and downs that go with college and that go with going into the adult world Professor, how has covid affected high school graduation rates and college entry as a whole, since the pandemic. But interestingly, almost every academic outcome declined during the pandemic, except one. And that's the high school graduation, which actually stayed steady during the pandemic, which is surprising at first because we know students weren't learning as much and so what was really happening? I had a high school or myself, so you can see it happening was they just weren't learning as much. But the schools are really trying to keep students engaged. High schools wanted students to graduate, they didn't want them to get thrown off track. So, you know, they made it relatively easy, relaxed standards, just try to try to keep students from getting completely disconnected from school. Uh and that kept the graduation rate up. But you know, at the same time, we know students weren't, weren't learning as much and then, you know, in that transition to college, there was a pretty big drop off, especially with two year colleges, There wasn't as much of an effect on four year colleges, but a big drop off in two year college entry. So fewer students going to college. What kind of consequences will there be for these students who are starting a few steps behind you anticipate a higher dropout rate in the upcoming years. Yeah, I think it's gonna, it will likely continue for a while. I mean, the other thing to keep in mind and that part of the reason why we see the drop is that the labor market is hot right now. And so, so students have a lot of other job opportunities right now, which is good in the short term. But I think the concern is that they may get uh, on that, that working track and working is great, but in the long term that the market is not going to be hot forever and eventually things are gonna go back to the way they were and having a college degree, having that credential, having that background, having those skills that's going to be important again at some point. And I think the concern is that they're not going to get back on that track, get back to college and keep developing those skills and that in the long term, when when the labor market starts to change again and get back to normal, that they're just not going to be ready for it. So hopefully people will see that coming and well, we'll, we'll get back back into the classroom and, and even though it's a challenge, it's harder than it was before, uh, through no fault of their own, through covid that hopefully they'll be able to stick it out and the colleges will respond to some of this is on the responsibility of the colleges to adapt to student needs and make sure that they're getting what they need. So what else could be done or should be done by schools, teachers and parents to better prepare these incoming students, these freshmen? Well, part of it's on the preparation side goes back to high school and, and the things that can be done there and then there's then there's how the colleges themselves respond to it. So I think trying to be more responsive to individual student needs, uh you know, again I mentioned the psychological and social side of this like being responsive to see if a professor sees a student disengaging, not showing up to class or just unable to do what they need to get them, whether it's tutoring help or seeing a counselor to make sure everything's okay, encouraging students to come into office hours more than one on one attention. Since it's more difficult to get get students engaged, that that one on one relationship becomes a lot more important to keeping students involved. It will be more work for sure, but that's what we need to do. Douglas Harris, professor and chair of the Department of Economics at Tulane University. Thank you so much.