The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant hardships for students from low-income, poor, and working-class backgrounds enrolled at large, public research universities, according to the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium survey of 30,697 undergraduate students conducted May through July 2020 at nine universities. In the survey, 7% of respondents (n = 2,112) identified as low-income or poor, 16% identified as working-class (n = 4,970), 42% identified as middle-class (n = 12,815), 32% identified as upper-middle or professional-middle class (n = 9,924), and 3% identified as wealthy (n = 876).  

The results of our study suggest that students from low-income/poor and working-class backgrounds were significantly more likely than their peers to experience financial hardships, including the loss or reduction of income from other family members, unexpected increases in living experiences and technology, the loss/cancellation of expected jobs or internships, and the loss of wages from off-campus employment.

Graduate and professional students have reported significant hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic which they believe will negatively impact their ability to complete their degrees on-time, according to the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium survey administered from May to July 2020 of 15,346 graduate and professional students at ten universities.

Specifically, 24% of graduate and professional students expected the pandemic to delay the semester or term they intend to graduate, 35% were uncertain if the pandemic would delay their graduation, and 41% did not expect the pandemic to delay their graduation.

The top three obstacles to graduate and professional students’ degree completion include the lack of access to an appropriate study space or a distracting home environment (52%), inability to conduct research (43%), and inability to attend professional conferences (35%). 

We observed differences between the obstacles students experienced by students’ academic factors (e.g., degree type, academic program), employment, and demographics (i.e., gender, social class, caregiving status, race/ethnicity, and disability). We highlight some of the large differences in students’ obstacles by those academic factors, employment, and demographic characteristics below.