Last March, a wave of change rolled through universities across the world. Students were sent home for virtual coursework, and college campuses were shut down indefinitely. At a time where college enrollment rates were already on the decline, the pandemic only made things worse: in Spring 2021, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported a 5.9 percent decline in undergraduate enrollment, with community college falling by almost twice as much at 11.3 percent. Low-income students, first-generation students, and international students were especially vulnerable to scrapping college plans entirely, opting for a gap year, or abandoning their applications in lieu of employment opportunities.
