Research Blog #10: Abstract and Works Cited

The Covid Gap Year: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Exacerbates Anxieties About Higher Education

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant declines in college enrollments by low-income students caused by changes in family finances that have forced many to delay or pause their college attendance. Meanwhile, low-income students who have continued with college often suffer increased anxiety and difficulty keeping up with online instruction due to the digital divide. This paper examines whether a COVID-19 gap year is a viable option for low-income students, especially those who can use it to do identity work, by which they can obtain individualized cultural capital that will help them to complete college later but more quickly than other low-income students. The paper makes the argument that although the gap year option has traditionally been exercised by more affluent students, even low-income students can benefit from the experience if they can find meaningful identity work to pursue. 

 

Works Cited

Armstrong, Elizabeth, and Laura Hamilton.  Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality.  Harvard UP, 2013.

Arum, Richard, and Josipa Roksa. Academically Adrift : Limited Learning on College Campuses. University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Britt, Sonya L., David Allen Ammerman et al. Student Loans, Financial Stress, and College Student Retentions. Journal of Student Financial Aid: Vol 47: Iss. 1, Article 3, 2017.

Dill, Kathryn. “Careers & Leadership: Gap Years in the Covid Era --- Rewards -- and Risks -- Greet Students Who Defer School for Other Efforts.” The Wall Street Journal. Eastern Edition, Eastern edition, Dow Jones & Company Inc, 2020.

Fanzeres, Julia. "U.S. College Students on Covid Gap Years Are Taking Big Financial Risks”. Bloomberg, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-07/u-s-college-students-on-covid-gap-years-are-taking-big-financial-risks

Goldrick-Rab, Sara, and Seong Won Han. “Accounting for Socioeconomic Differences in Delaying the Transition to College.” Review of Higher Education, vol. 34, no. 3, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, pp. 423–45, doi:10.1353/rhe.2011.0013.

Horn, Michael B. "Unprecedented Numbers of Students Are Taking a Gap Year. What Should They Do With the Time?" EdSurge, 17 Aug. 2020, www.edsurge.com/news/2020-08-17-unprecedented-numbers-of-students-are-taking-a-gap-year-what-should-they-do-with-the-time

Jaschik, Scott. “Nervous Freshmen, Nervous Colleges.” Inside Higher Ed, 10 Aug. 2020, www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2020/08/10/survey-40-percent-freshmen-may-not-enroll-any-four-year-college.

King, Andrew. “Minding the Gap? Young People’s Accounts of Taking a Gap Year as a Form of Identity Work in Higher Education.” Journal of Youth Studies, vol. 14, no. 3, Taylor & Francis Group, 2011, pp. 341–57, doi:10.1080/13676261.2010.522563.

Parker, Philip D., et al. “I Wish I Had (Not) Taken a Gap-Year? The Psychological and Attainment Outcomes of Different Post-School Pathways.” Developmental Psychology, vol. 51, no. 3, American Psychological Association, 2015, pp. 323–33, doi:10.1037/a0038667.

Saul, Stephanie. “The Pandemic Hit the Working Class Hard. The Colleges That Serve Them Are Hurting, Too.” The New York Times, 2 Apr. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/politics/covid-19-colleges.html.

Whitmire, Richard. "‘That’s Not a Gap Year. That’s Just Not Going to College’: COVID-19 Erodes Equity Gains Of First-Generation College-Goers". The74million.Org, 2021, https://www.the74million.org/article/thats-not-a-gap-year-thats-just-not-going-to-college-covid-19-erodes-equity-gains-of-first-generation-college-goers/.

 

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