Pandemic changing college plans for some more than others
Photo | Grant Welker
Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Boynton Hall
The number of high school students planning to attend college has remained largely unchanged by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to MassINC polling data, but technology and language barriers showed themselves to be two of the biggest reasons a student might delay or alter their intentions to enter college.
The survey was taken June 4 through June 19. MassINC Polling Group President Steve Kozcela, MassINC Chief Operating Officer Juana Matias and MassINC Research Director Ben Forman discussed the polling results related to college planning Wednesday in a video conference.
Seventy-two percent of parents with children in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades said those students were likely to attend college, consistent with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's pre-pandemic data on the topic. Health and safety (70 percent) now rivals affordability (72 percent) as the leading factor in deciding whether to enroll in higher education in the fall.
Only 17 percent of parents said their child's college plans were likely to change because of COVID-19. Thirty-seven percent of those parents said they lacked adequate access to the internet, and 31 percent spoke Spanish at home.
Students of color were also more likely than white students to be "technology burdened" and be rethinking their college plans, according to Koczela, who called it "certainly a privilege" to be able to stick to one's higher education goals.
White parents, at 56 percent, were more likely than other demographic groups to say their child's plans to attend a four-year college had not changed, as were parents earning over $75,000.
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